Pokemon:A New Beginning
by Kuromoki
Summary: AU. Ash was bored. A bored Ash is a dangerous Ash. Until he stumbles across a forest that will become his prowling grounds. Massive changes to Ash based on Anime,Games and Manga. Probably going to be an Overtime Strong!Ash. Rated M, for lots of cursing and implied situations. I'm prone to bouts of hypocrisy as well, so don't expect this fic to be anything good. Discontinued.
1. Bored Ash

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.**

"Speech"

_'Thoughts'_

_"Telepathy"_

* * *

In the depths of Pallet Town exists a forest full of Pokemon that make it their home. Further into this forest random items were strewn across the place that the Pokemon who lived there had salvaged as they sometimes wandered close to civilization, ranging from a wide array of books to poke-balls to restorative items to fishing rods and a plethora of other items.

What stood out the most out of everything was the pinkish egg that resided in the hollow of a large tree in the center of the forest.

As the sun rose giving the egg some light, it emitted a soft glow before dimming down as if it were waiting for something.

* * *

Ash Ketchum was bored.

It was one of those days where his mom was out-of-town because she said, "Even I need some time to relax now and then."

So here he was bored out of his mind because his mom wasn't home and when he wanted to go visit Professor Oak to play with the Pokemon at the ranch he found out that Professor Oak was out-of-town as well for some sort of meeting if what his grand-daughter said was to be believed.

Now a bored Ash Ketchum was dangerous. A bored 7-year-old Ash Ketchum on a sugar rush from all the cookies he ate was downright scary.

Here he was running around on a sugar high near the forest of Pallet town hoping to play with the local wild Pokemon that lived in the forest. Being the inquisitive child that he was, he decided to enter the forest in hopes of finding wild Pokemon to play with.

As he entered the forest he noticed all types of items lying haphazardly around the place. The thing that caught his attention was the round red and white ball on the floor.

As Ash bent down to look at it he couldn't help but exclaim, "Woah! A real pokeball!". Quickly picking it up and pocketing it after making sure it belonged to no one he looked around again and found some books near the base of a tree. Moving closer to look at them, his eyes turned into stars as he read the title "Beginners Guide to Pokemon Care" and "Researcher's Guide:How to properly learn how to examine differences between Pokemon of the same species and types". Like all kids, Ash dreamed of becoming a Pokemon master one day ever since he saw his first Pokemon battle on TV, and now he had in his hands the tools to help him become a Pokemon Master, so he laughed and laughed for who knows how long. Until he finally noticed that it was starting to get dark and that he had better get home before his mom got home or else she would be very worried. As he turned to head back home, he turned to look back at the forest that he didn't get to explore more than a part of and made a promise to come back and explore some more when he had time.

* * *

As Ash got home he noticed that his mom still wasn't home, so he quickly went up to his room and hid the two books under his bed and the pokeball in the drawer on his desk and went back downstairs to wait for his mom to get home. As he waited he slowly felt the sugar rush peter out and slowly started falling asleep on the couch till he entered dreamland. In his dream he thought he heard a voice that said to quickly come and find me but it was so faint he couldn't make it out completely and the shaking wasn't really helping.

"...sh...a...h...as...ash...ASH!" someone screamed. Ash sprang up from the loud noise in his ear and started looking around wildly with all the extra adrenaline pumping in his veins from being woken up like that, till he saw his mom looking at him with an amused expression.

"Mom!" Ash exclaimed as he tackled into her hug. "How was your day Ashie?" she asked.

Ash thought of how to reply before saying. " It was great mom I was playing near the forest looking for Pokemon!" Delia smiled at that thinking how alike he was to her husband with his love for Pokemon, but felt a stab of loneliness for him when he opted to continue his journey instead of settling down with her, before it was ruthlessly crushed and said to Ash while ruffling his hair. "Alright, now why don't you go upstairs to rest instead of on the couch while I prepare dinner, OK honey?"

As Ash was looking at his mom, he saw a flash of sadness cross her face and then she told him to go upstairs to prepare for dinner. Normally he would've argued that he wasn't tired but seeing his mom look sad made his objection die in his throat and muttered an "OK" before going upstairs to his room.

Inside his room Ash was bored again since he was no longer tired after sleeping for an hour on the couch waiting for his mom. So he went under his bed and took out the book about how to take care of Pokemon and started to read it. As he read more and more, he got more confused because some of the words he didn't understand. So he went downstairs to get the dictionary in hopes of shedding light on what he was reading. As he passed his mom who was working cheerfully in the kitchen, he couldn't help but be angry at his dad for abandoning his mom to continue on his Pokemon journey and not once call or come to check up on her or him. There he swore that he would never do something like that to his mom when he was on his Pokemon journey and to make time for visits and calls on his journey. So he made a promise there to try to find a way that would easily get him home to visit mom but also not hinder his own journey.

As Ash got back up to his room with dictionary in hand, he started to slowly translate the words he didn't understand to words he could but was starting to get frustrated because there were so many words he didn't understand that it made his head hurt. So he improvised by grabbing a separate piece of paper and slowly rewriting the passage into words he could understand. In ten minutes he was done with the first passage and started to go over his handiwork.

_"In this Beginners Guide to Pokemon Care, we will be going over the many ways to take care of Pokemon of each type. Sadly we will not go in-depth on how to take care of specific Pokemon due to the fact that there are well over 600 different types of Pokemon that roam the world and more and more are slowly being discovered as time goes on. For example the most common type similar to us humans would have to be the Normal type. Their fur is most similar to domesticated animals like dogs and cats, so caring for them would be similar to caring for a dog or cat, the only differences would be their diet which vary but altogether similar to what we humans eat. As a side note domesticated animals such as dogs and cats are slowly becoming extinct due to the increasing amounts of domesticated Pokemon that replace them in households across the world."_

_'Whoa'_ Ash thought as he finished reading the passage he translated from the book. That was so much information that he didn't know about and he wondered why. Until he remembered that it was probably taught but he forgot all about it that day after school. Here he made a resolution to learn as much as he could about Pokemon before he went on his Pokemon Journey so that he would know how to properly care for the Pokemon that he would eventually catch.

"Ash! dear, come down dinners ready!" his mom yelled from downstairs.

"Coming!" he shouted back. He slowly put the paper with the translated passage into the book and hid the book back under his bed while he left the dictionary on his table before heading downstairs to dinner.

* * *

Once Ash was downstairs, he slowly moved to the table to help his mom set up the table. Once that was done they sat down and slowly started to eat and Ash's mind started wandering to how he had to slowly prepare for his Pokemon Journey by learning all that he could about Pokemon, Pokemon Care, dietary needs, his own needs, and how to keep in contact with his mom.

On the other side of the table Delia was looking at her son who didn't seem to be eating with his usual amount of enthusiasm and was worried he may be sick so she asked, "Ash dear, are you alright?"

Jolted out of his train of thought he looked up at his mom and said, "Huh? Did you say something?"

Delia was really worried now since her son not only was he not eating as much as usual but was also spacing out. So she gently repeated, "Are you alright dear?"

Ash saw his mom look worried and when she repeated herself he said, "I'm okay, just thinking about my Pokemon Journey"

That surprised Delia thinking that her boy was growing up so fast that he was thinking about his Pokemon Journey that wouldn't happen until 3 more years passed. Sighing in relief, she immediately felt a stab of pain in her heart that in 3 years her son would be on his way and she would be alone again. Shaking such thoughts from her mind she adopted a cheerful look and cooed, "Awww, my baby boys growing up so fast now, soon you'll be leaving little old me behind to go on your journey"

At this Ash looked away guiltily forgetting that his mom would be all alone once he started his Pokemon Journey. This just strengthened his resolve to find a way to always keep in contact with his mom and to make sure to visit when he found a way to get home without getting slowing down in his journey.

Delia saw him looking away guiltily and immediately said, "I'm just joking, just make sure to call from time to time when your on your journey, OK?"

Ash nodded at this and went back to eating, this time with the enthusiasm that was missing at the beginning of dinner. Seeing her son was back to his normal self, she too returned to eating.

* * *

After dinner was over Ash went back upstairs to prepare for a bath while his mom did the dishes. Once he was in the bathroom and taking a bath, his mind went back to wandering, and started thinking of how to properly take care of his Pokemon and how to find a way to keep in contact with his mom. It wasn't until he heard his mom saying "Ash dear, are you almost done?" that he quickly got up and replied "Coming out now mom!".

Once he was back in his room he locked the door and went to retrieve the books from under the bed. This time he decided to read some of the other book called "Researcher's Guide:How to properly learn how to examine differences between Pokemon of the same species and types" as he examined it closer, he noticed that at the bottom it read "Collaboration between Professors all over the world", bringing up his trusty dictionary he looked up the word "collaboration" and found out it meant a goal between lots of people.

At this his eye's lighted up thinking that this book was written by Professors around the world just like Professor Oak! He also noticed that the book seemed old and thought maybe its been in the forest for a long time. Once he opened the book he immediately saw that it was made in 2056 which was 4 years ago. That explained why the book looked so old, if its been that long since it was made that long ago and been in the forest for that long it was amazing that it was still in one Ash once more tried to read this book and found that some of the words were the same as the other book so he understood some of it but not all. So he once more translated the first page of the book and the table of contents. Once that was done it read.

**_Table of_****_ Contents_**

_Prologue. Pokemon: What they are. General Consensus_

_1. Pokemon Interaction with Humans. By Professor Oak_

_2. Pokemon Breeding and the results. By Professor Elm_

_3. Pokemon differences between regions. By Professor Ivy_

_4. Pokemon Habitats and Distribution. By Professor Birch_

_5. Pokemon Evolution. By Professor Rowan_

_6. Pokemon Origins. By Professor Juniper_

_7. Shiny Pokemon. By Professor Wiseman_

_..._

Once Ash was done reading this, he was wide-eyed. To think there were so many types of researchers trying to understand Pokemon, yet here he was thinking he could be a Pokemon Master by just knowing how to battle. Shaking his head he read the other page that he translated.

_"We researchers have always wondered what were Pokemon and how they came to be, but despite all we have done to try and understand them, we have not been able to discover how they came to be, and just guesses on what they are. Based on our guesses, we believe that animals of the past have slowly changed and then they slowly evolved into what they are today-Professor Juniper, the evolution of these Pokemon are further advances towards their full potential that can only be reached with the help of trainers- Professor Rowan, We believe that the bonds that Pokemon create with their trainers are the key to accessing their full potential, In a way you could say that Pokemon need trainers to reach their full potential, however there are some that don't need trainers but rather rage,anger,sadness or even happiness to evolve.-Professor Oak. There are various other possible theories on the birth of Pokemon but based on the distribution and and habitats along with regional differences, we believe that the animals that evolved into what Pokemon are today somehow broke past there natural barriers and became what they are today after all every region has some of the same Pokemon but different climates, so it leads us to believe that the animals that broke through there natural barriers evolved into what suited them best.-Professor Birch and believe that there are some Pokemon that have broken past even those natural limits of Pokemon and became what we now know as-"_

"Eh!? Wheres the rest!" Ash exclaimed as the text he was reading was cut off. Looking around wildly he saw the book and immediately tried to read the rest. When he landed on the word "Legendaries" his eyes widened and tried to continue. Then he heard his mom calling for him to go to bed. So with great reluctance he put the paper into the book and hid the books under his bed again before climbing into bed and tried going to sleep. It took over 2 hours to fall asleep but in the end a child couldn't overcome his young body's needs.

* * *

As Ash was dreaming again, he could a faint voice calling, for what he wasn't sure but he knew it was for something. Something that sounded like_"...c...q...k...m...p...ui...p...e..."_. He wasn't sure what it was but it felt important to him.

The next morning Ash woke up early then he could ever remember and immediately headed towards the bathroom to get his morning ritual done with so he could go back to reading the book on research of pokemon. He was up so early that Delia did a double take when she saw her son awake without having her wake him up. She smiled at this and thought '_maybe my little boy is finally growing up and becoming responsible'_.

Ash was quickly finishing up his morning ritual and heading back to his room to continue on from last nights reading. As he headed back to his room he passed the kitchen and said, "Good morning mom!"

Delia turned her head and replied, "Good morning to you too Ash dear~"

Ash smiled and said, "Mom, I'm going to be in my room, call me when breakfast is ready"

At this Delia smiled and nodded in affirmative.

With that done Ash went back upstairs to pick up from last nights reading.

* * *

Getting the books from under his bed, Ash once more tried to read further in the field of Pokemon Research but was hit by a roadblock of being unable to understand the words again. Grabbing another sheet of paper and the dictionary, he once more got to work on translating the second page of the text. As he kept translating the text he noticed words that kept repeating themselves, such as potential meaning how strong something can get, evolving which meant to reach a new level of power, distribution which meant how something is split up and a multitude of other words that were slowly being stored in his subconscious. Once he was done translating the page, he looked it over to make sure there were no mistakes are started to read.

_"-Legendaries, these legends as their title implies mean that they are possibly Pokemon that have broken through their natural limits and transcended what they were originally capable of. In a way you could say that to be a Legendary, a Pokemon must be able to transcend its natural limits to the point that it is leagues ahead of others in terms of power, skill and experience._

_These "Legendaries" are in a league of their own, each has an important task that they seem to have and carry with vigor. For example: The Kanto Legendary Birds Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos seem to be tasked with guarding specific areas of Kanto based on confirmed sightings by people who have seem them fly overhead. This was what led to us Researchers believing that each legendary of each region has a task they must carry out to the best of their abilities. While on the subject of legendaries there are many branches of Pokemon that can either grow up to match the power of a legendary or if they have been correctly raised to match that power. Such as certain Pokemon which can be classed as Pseudo-Legendaries if they are raised correctly and another group that can match Pseudo-Legendaries if raised correctly also. Another way would be Shiny Pokemon which is a Pokemon with a different color tone then the normal Pokemon. These types of Pokemon are generally seen as bad luck in the wild with packs of other Pokemon but they are inherently stronger than a normal colored information will be on Professor Wisemans study of Shiny Pokemon in chapter 7 of this guide."_

'_Wow_' Ash thought as he finished reading another page of his handiwork. Curiosity satisfied for now, he decided he would stop for now and go downstairs for breakfast and then return to read some more before heading out to explore more of the forest from yesterday. Schedule planned for the day, Ash stashed away his books and translated pages back under his bed and headed downstairs to wait for breakfast to be done.

* * *

As he reached the bottom of the stairs he saw his mom setting up the table for breakfast while idly humming to herself. When she was done, she turned around and saw Ash at the foot of the stairs and said, "Oh! I was just about to call you down for breakfast dear". Ash smiled sheepishly and replied, "Hehe, I was thinking now would be a good time to come down for breakfast since I could smell the food from my room".

Delia smiled at this and said, "Well why don't you come and eat up now so that you can go out to play hm?"

Faster then she could blink, Ash appeared at the table already taking his first bite out of a piece of toast. Sighing at this Delia said, "Ash dear, I _really_ will have to teach you proper etiquette if your manners are that bad"

Ash tilted his head to the side at this and asked, "etiquette?"

Delia gave another long-suffering sigh and replied, "Yes, etiquette, it is how you act in front of people you don't know"

Ash tilted his head to the side once more and asked, "why do I need to know something like that?"

Closing her eye's and sighing once more, Delia replied,"That is because if you don't know to act properly, people won't take you seriously because if you don't have the common courtesy to act mature with them, then they won't have to properly listen to you"

Ash just replied with "So?"

Delia pondered how she would get her baby boy to learn proper etiquette if he was this dense. Getting an idea after a min or two, she had a Cheshire-like grin on her face that unnerved Ash a bit, but was unsure why. She surprised him again by asking if his dream was still to be a Pokemon Master. When he replied in the affirmative, he saw her grin become a full-blown smile that sent his budding self-preservation instincts wild.

* * *

When Delia asked her boy if he still wanted to be a Pokemon Master, she felt her mind slowly start a plan to teach him proper etiquette. When he replied with an affirmative answer, her mind already had a solid plan ready to be used. With a full-blown smile on her face she said, "Then it is necessary that you learn proper etiquette to be a Pokemon Master, after all when you eventually go on your Pokemon Journey you need to be able to act properly in other people's company and to be able to communicate with others that may be able to help you if you find yourself in trouble, after all it would be a lot easier asking for help if you ask nicely then demanding it from people right?"

Ash didn't know what to say after what his mom told him. So he quietly thought over what she said. Eventually he arrived at the conclusion that his mom was right, after all if he wanted to be a Pokemon Master he would need to be able to act calmly like he how he saw Kanto and Johto's Champion Lance acted like during an interview asking what he thought of the Pokemon Trainers that competed in last years Indigo League. Looking back at his mom Ash replied, "Ohhhkaay, I'll learn proper etiquette mom"

Delia smiled at his answer and said, "Alright dear, I'll start your lessons later today, now why don't you take your first lesson now, and slowly eat your breakfast instead of eating like it will disappear,OK dear?"

Ash nodded and started to slowly eat his breakfast instead of shoveling it down his gullet.

Delia nodded, seeing her boy start to eat like a normal civilized person, she too returned to eating her breakfast while pondering on how she would teach her son proper etiquette later today.

When breakfast was finished Ash got up and put his dishes into the sink before heading back up to his room.

* * *

Back inside his room he once more took out the book on Pokemon research and started thumbing towards the middle of the book. While he was reading his translated page on Legendaries, he remembered something about Shiny Pokemon being mentioned and decided to check it out. Once he got to the right section, he started reading it, finding it infinitely easier than when he first started reading the book and due to the fact that there was not a lot of information on shiny Pokemon, although there were still some words he didn't understand, he could manage.

_"Shiny Pokemon, something that all researchers today are still unsure of what is so different about them compared to their regular counterparts. A Shiny Pokemon is basically a Pokemon that is a different color compared to its normal counterpart. Researchers theorize that due to a genetic mutation when the Pokemon is born from its egg, the Pokemon has a chance to be a different color because of this. So far the chances of a shiny Pokemon being born from an egg is about one in every one million, that is a 0.000001% while finding one in the wild is even more rare than breeding one. Researcher Wiseman, our lead researcher on shiny Pokemon theorize that due to the genetic mutation that caused the Pokemon to become a shiny also gives the Pokemon in question a boost in power and intelligence. This stems from the fact that awhile ago, stumbled across a shiny Noctowl, yet when he tried to capture it for study, it eluded all his traps and the Pokemon's power in general seemed higher than that of an average lends credence to the theory that indeed a genetic mutation is required for a Pokemon to be shiny at birth which gives them a boost in power and intellect. Take note that this only supports Pokemon that were born shiny. There has been cases of Pokemon changing colors as time went on or they just found themselves shiny one day. Our only plausible theory was that based on the diet of the Pokemon, the Pokemon in question developed a sense of power from the food they ate granting them more strength. A perfect example of this is with humans, if a proper human has a healthy diet, they find themselves having more strength then someone who has an unhealthy diet. This genetic mutation is what grant the Shiny Pokemon in question to be able to match a Legendary Pokemon in power if raised correctly, skill and experience however which Legendaries seemed to have ingrained into their instincts, are not something that Shiny Pokemon have, they must develop it themselves in theory is supported by observations of Shiny Pokemon in the wild that move in packs, show that the Shiny Pokemon is isolated and picked on regularly the its fellow pack members. This might be due to the fact that since its a different color similar to the metaphor "black sheep in the herd of white sheep", due to the isolation and bullying the different colored Pokemon is forced to mature faster than its regular counterparts and develop enough power to defend itself."_

When Ash was done reading his head was spinning, to think that there would be Pokemon that could be different color than normal and that they were bullied because they were different, Ash knew what bullies were like, his best friend Gary started acting like one once he found out that he could become a Pokemon Trainer already because he was Professor Oak's _ Grandson, _even though he didn't have his own Pokemon he was starting to act like he was better than everyone else because his grandpa let him register to be a Pokemon Trainer. Ash knew he could be a Pokemon Trainer too, but his mom wouldn't let him until she thought he was ready to be a Pokemon Trainer which basically translated into him being ready for his Pokemon Journey or if she thought that he could take care of his own Pokemon. Ash thought, _"Of course I know how to take care of Pokemon!"_ while another part of him thought, _"but what if I can't, after reading the book on Pokemon care I didn't know anything about that and it was only about one type, what about all the others..."_. Doubt chewing on his mind Ash tried shaking off the morbid thoughts but found it pretty hard.

Closing the book and putting it back under his bed, he got changed into his outdoor cloths and went downstairs. As he got down, he headed towards the door and yelled to his mom that he was going out to play before running out the door. He vaguely heard his mom telling him to be back before it got too dark.

Ash headed off towards the forest from yesterday intent on exploring more of it to see if there was anything else there.

* * *

When he reached the edge of the forest, he noticed that there Pokemon moving around inside the forest. Thinking it over Ash quietly walked over towards a tree and hid behind it to observe the Pokemon in order to not scare them off. When he looked into the small clearing he noticed more random items strewn around the place. Looking closely he noticed that Pidgeys were flying over and dropping stuff onto the ground white Sentrets and Furrets were picking items up, looking at them, them tossing them to the side. The more he observed the more he noticed that the Pokemon were only picking up the berries and edible stuff, while the stuff they didn't know how to use were tossed off to the side. At least that's what it looked like to Ash as he continued watching the Pokemon sort out there stuff that random Pokemon seemed to drop all over the place, if the sounds around the forest were anything to go by.

Once all the Pokemon were done sorting the stuff, they all scurried away with their loot to who knows where. Ash stepped out from behind the tree he was observing them from and noticed a few items that weren't there yesterday. Such as what looked like a bicycle tire, a fishing rod, a few glass containers, some glitter things, and to his surprise a few potions that looked brand new. Pocketing the potions for whenever he got Pokemon, he ventured a bit deeper into the forest while making sure he could see the entrance from where he entered. Walking in a straight line he noticed more items lying haphazardly around the area. Rubber balls had him slipping because they were covered the grass around his feet, bottles of something kept making him lose his balance and berries on the ground making squashing sounds every time he stepped on one. By the time he entered a small clearing his shoes made him feel slippery, his pants dirty and his hands and butt hurting from repeatedly falling on them.

Looking around the clearing, he saw some rotten leftovers of food, another bike tire thing, some papers lying around and a small bag hanging off a low branch. Curious about the bag, he walked towards it and grabbed it off the branch and took a look inside. What greeted his sights were poke-balls of some sort. They had so many colors that his he couldn't even tell what they were for. The only thing he could recognize aside from the regular poke-ball was the premier ball and only because he saw on TV that if you bought ten regular poke-balls, they give you a free premier ball with them. Putting the bag into this pocket to store in his drawer with his other poke-ball he found, he went towards the papers on the floor and saw almost all of them bearing the same title "Indigo League coming to the Indigo Plateau in the Summer of 2060" in flashy lettering. On the bottom it stated that the requirements to be a participant was to be a trainer for over a year and have beaten 8 gym leaders for their badges. On the other papers they too bore the same title except it was "Guide to being a Trainer". Ash struck gold with this paper, for listed on it were tips on how to be a good Pokemon trainer based on a survey from trainers all over the world. Quickly folding up one of the papers and slipping it into his pocket with the small bag, he looked around the clearing one more time to make sure he didn't miss anything that might be interesting. After all like his mom said to him sometimes with "words of wisdom" as she called them "One mans trash is another's treasure" or "Waste not want not", something like that is he remembered it correctly. Seeing nothing he continued on his way deeper into the forest once more, making sure to head in a straight line so when he had to go home, he just had to turn around and walk straight again.

As he continued walking straight he noticed Pokemon pausing in there daily activities to either run away or continue watching him as he passed. Ash has nothing to worry about since he heard from his mom that nothing was dangerous in this forest unless you attacked them first. Since he didn't have any Pokemon to attack with, he watched them back thinking "_Is this what its like to be a researcher observing Pokemon?"_

Directing his attention once more to observing the Pokemon around him, he noticed that some Pidgeys up in the trees were smaller or bigger then each other and some of them had different ways of flying, such as the one that looked like it just floated onto another tree or the one that flapped its wings so many times just to being able to fly. He also noticed some Rattatas feeding the young with what looked like acorns and berries. Shaking his head a bit, he looked up and noticed that the sky was starting to get dark, so he turned around and started running home before it got dark.

* * *

By the time he got to the front door of his home, the sky was orange tinted with flocks of Pidgeys flying from somewhere back into the forest with the sunset as a background, pausing to observe the sight that looked strangely beautiful to the boy, he couldn't help but admire the scene playing out in front of him. By the time he got out of his stupor the sun had set and it was truly getting dark, so he entered his home and shouted, "I'm home!" for his mom to hear.

* * *

Delia upon hearing her boy shout,"I'm home!" responded with, "Welcome back dear"

She saw her boy pause at the kitchen door and say, "I'm going to my room to change first mom"

Delia nodded at this seeing as her boy must've fallen in dirt if his dirty pants were anything to go by.

Replying with, "OK honey, go get changed and then once we finish dinner we'll start on your lessons on etiquette"

Her boy looked up at her for a second then had an 'O' expression on his face that made him look so adorable, before nodding and heading up the stairs to his room.

* * *

Once Ash was in his room he quickly took out the bag of poke-balls and stored it in his drawer with his other poke-ball and took out the pamphlet containing tips to be a trainer and stored it inside as well, making a note on his desk to make sure to read it after he finished his etiquette lessons with mom.

Quickly changing out of his dirty cloths, and changing into new ones, he put the dirty ones in the cloths hamper so that they could be cleaned when it was laundry time.

Heading downstairs for dinner he saw his mom sitting there waiting for him to show up, sidling up to the table and sitting down and getting ready to eat, he paused when he saw his mom looking at him with a piercing stare. Retracting his hands, he idly waited for his mom to say something.

After a minute or two his mom cleared her throat and said, "Now dear, this will be a lesson on how you properly eat in company ok?"

Nodding his head in assent, she continued, "Now what you have to understand is that while you are eating in someone else's company you must eat slowly and make sure you properly chew otherwise it would be _very_ rude to the person who cooked the meal, in addition to that, if someone starts a conversation with you, you must make sure you speak AFTER you finish chewing and swallowing, understood?"

Nodding once more, she smiled and said,"Good, now we will eat exactly as I said we could, BUT I will be speaking to you and you MUST, chew and swallow before answering OK sweetie?"

Another nod."Good let's eat" she said.

With that Ash painstaking ate his dinner slowly, making sure to do as his mom said and found the food to be more delicious than he remembered.

* * *

Delia smiled as she saw her son eating slowly like a civilized person now instead of before when he just shoveled food down his gullet without appreciating the food. She also noted the surprise across his face as he chewed his food. So she initiated the conversation that she said she would start over the course of his dinner lesson.

"Ash is something the matter with the food?" she asked.

He looked like he was about to respond before he paused, chewed his food rapidly and said, "it's more delicious than before"

She smiled at his behavior and his comment but then frowned and said,"Good, but next time when I ask a question don't chew that rapidly, take your time after all if you chewed so quickly without properly appreciating the taste it's considered rude and that goes against what I'm trying to teach you, understood?"

He nodded at this and continued eating.

Delia frowned once more and said, "Ash dear, please properly answer that and to not end a conversation that quickly, it makes it awkward OK?"

He nodded again and said, "OK mom, sorry"

Delia sighed at this and said, "It's OK, I didn't expect you to pick it up right away since you're not used to eating slowly and talking without your mouth full, but you WILL learn"

This time he replied with a "yes mom" which brought a smile to her face to see him picking things up so fast, inwardly hoping he wouldn't forget all about it the next day.

* * *

As the dinner progressed Delia asked Ash more questions to make sure he was properly learning how to act during a meal in company.

She asked stuff like "How was your day?" and he responded with "It was great! I got to observe lots of Pokemon in the forest in their natural habitat and how they acted around each other!"

At this Delia took note of a few words that a child like him shouldn't know. So she asked "Where did you learn to use words like observe, and natural habitat?"

She saw him jump in his seat, before grinning sheepishly and said, "he he, I read it in the dictionary when I saw a word I didn't know what it meant"

At this Delia's eyebrow shot up, while thinking _"Oh, my boy is reading a dictionary and learning complicated words, he's so diligent"_, but she smiled and said, "It looks like my boys growing up so fast, learning words that other people your age shouldn't know."

Ash blushed and stammered incoherently while his mom laughed at his incoherent stammers. He then pouted and his mother apologized and told him she was just teasing him.

After that they finished their dinner and retired to their rooms to prepare for a bath. While his mom went first Ash was in his room reading up on the tips to be a good trainer.

* * *

Ash was reading up on the numerous trainer tips on the pamphlet he picked up, next to him was a list of tips that he thought were important. So far they were, _1,A trainer must always be aware of the condition of there Pokemon, 2, A trainer must always take care of there Pokemon ensuring it stays healthy, 3, Pokemon should not be overworked for that makes them weaker in later fights, 4, Have at least one day off for all Pokemon and trainers to relax, 5, Train yourself with your Pokemon, if a trainer is strong in the Pokemon's eye's then they won't listen, 6, Bond with your Pokemon, build trust between yourself and your Pokemon, for without trust Pokemon and there trainers will never get along, 7,Train your own mind and body to keep up with your Pokemon, for if a Pokemon see's his trainer working hard with them, they will trust the trainers judgement more, 8, build experience with your Pokemon, for instinct will only get you so far before you ultimately fail, 9, Surpass your limits for that is the key to being a stronger Pokemon trainer and finally 10, Those who abandon Pokemon for their weakness are trash, but those who hurt Pokemon because of their weakness is worse than trash._

These were the tips that Ash thought was most important to a trainer. As such he made a resolution to follow these tips as his RULES for a Pokemon Trainer.

With that done, he went and started reading the book on Pokemon Care for different types while waiting for his mom to finish taking a bath. While reading he was awed by the many different ways a specific type of Pokemon had to be taken care of. For example: Normal types were similar to humans, you just washed there fur and then rinse and the dry it off, while for electric types, they needed to have their electricity charged up every now and again for them to remain healthy or water types which it was required for them to swim around a lot to remain active in moving in water or the dragon types which required a lot of hard work to clam down because of their natural battle instincts going wild. So many different ways to take care of Pokemon, and that wasn't even going into specifics on how to care for specific Pokemon.

Ash once more reaffirmed his resolve to learn as much as possible about Pokemon before he set out for his journey.

Snapping to attention when he heard his mom calling him to take a bath, he put away his book and headed to the bathroom for his bath.

* * *

The next morning was the same as yesterday, he woke up early once more shocking his mother and then going back upstairs to read more about Pokemon care and then heading downstairs for breakfast while eating slowly and chewing while answering his mothers questions. After that his mother gave him lessons on how to interact between strangers and what was considered common courtesy and what was considered rude. After that he went back upstairs to read more, this time about Pokemon and there natural habitats, he remembered to bring some paper and pencils to write down his observations as he once more headed towards the forest.

As he got to the edge of the forest , he noticed once more that the Flying-type Pokemon were dropping random items onto the ground and the grounded Pokemon slowly came out of their homes and starting sorting though them for stuff that they could use. He took note of the time and it was close to midday, so he jotted that down on his paper that Pokemon come out scavenging for food at around midday which were either dropped from the trees or flying types would drop them around the place. As he observed the flying Pidgey's he noticed that the big ones carried the heavier stuff while the slight smaller one's carried smaller stuff. Slowly he concluded that the big one's were male while the slightly smaller was female. As he continued observing he noticed that a female Pidgey's eyebrows were smaller than the males and the tops of their heads were slightly longer than that of a male Pidgey. Jotting this down on his paper, he noticed that the Pokemon were retreating back into their homes, so he slowly entered and found more items added to yesterdays collection, this time a steel rod of some sort,a glowing yellow ball and a book about engineering. Picking up the glowing yellow ball and putting it in his pocket, he looked at the book about engineering shrugged and picked it up as well.

This time instead of heading straight, he walked around the edges of the forest, while trying to draw a map every 10 steps so that he could keep track of where he was. Soon he reached a river and drew that as well before heading back towards the starting point and walking straight into the forest like yesterday this time pausing to make observations on the Sentrets, Furrets, and Rattatas that he could see. He noticed that Sentrets didn't like being alone as he never saw one by itself, while the Furrets seemed to like digging holes while Rattatas seemed to always be looking for food if every time he saw them eating was any idea to go by, and he found out that the male Rattatas have longer whiskers than female ones and the females color was lighter than the males.

When he was in the clearing he was in yesterday he looked around again to see if there was anything interesting that might've been missed or mixed into the piles, as he was looking he saw a glint of glass and walked over it to properly look at it. When he saw what it was his eye's widened for in front of him was a Pokemon Egg Incubator and it looked brand new to boot, these thing's cost a fortune due to how reinforced the glass was and its ability to store sunlight inside it to warm an egg, just one cost well over 500 pokedollers, so carefully picking it up and looking around to see if he missed anything, and seeing a book a few feet away, walking over to it he looked at the title and saw "Survival Guide to the Wilderness", picking it up and adding it to the book on engineering he picked up from before and started heading out of the forest back home, it was only mid afternoon but, he had something that cost a lot in his hands so he would have to come back tomorrow to continue exploring and he had two new books to start reading, especially the survival guide, that was vital if he wanted to go on a Pokemon Journey, to survive in the wild.

* * *

Once he got to his home, he slowly sneaked upstairs to prevent his mom from seeing him carrying the PEI (Pokemon Egg Incubator) into his room.

Inside his room he carefully hid the PEI behind his bed and stashed the book on engineering under his bed while putting the papers and pencils he used for the day on his desk. He also took out the glowing yellow ball and put it in the drawer with his bag of different poke-balls. He then started to read the book on survival in the wilderness until it got dark and snapped him out of his reading stupor. Absentmindedly putting the book under his bed after bookmarking it, he headed downstairs to ask his mom if he could teach him how to cook, since in the guide it stated that one must be able to cook or they would end up starving. So he would ask his mom to see if she would teach him how to cook.

As he saw his mom preparing dinner, he went up to her and asked, "Mom can you teach me how to cook?"

His mom spun around at this and asked with a completely serious face and said "Why? Are you saying my food no longer tastes good for you? HUH!?"

Ash was totally afraid of why his mother was acting like this and it must've showed because his mother quickly embraced him and said, "Sorry about that dear, I was just wondering why you would just ask if you could learn to cook and thought you didn't like my cooking anymore"

Ash slowly hugged his mom back and said, "Sorry I was just thinking about my Pokemon Journey and thought that I needed to learn how to cook to feed myself and my future Pokemon"

Delia nodded at this although her boy couldn't see it, she moved back a bit and smiled and said, "Of course I'll teach you how to cook, but I'll have to teach you some other time, because on your journey you won't have an oven to help cook only a campfire, so we'll go camping one day and I'll teach you then, OK dear?"

Ash smiled at this and shouted, "YES PLEASE! CAMPING!"

Shaking her head at her boy's antics she turned her face towards him and said, "Well now that I think about it, teaching you how to cook with an oven would also help, after all you getting you some experience now will certainly help in the future, now come here so I can teach you how to make food"

With this Ash started learning how to cook along with the lessons on etiquette his mother was teaching him and his own private studies he kept secret from his mom for his preparation on going on a Pokemon Journey.

* * *

**AN: So yea, this is a story I created the basis of about half a year ago, I got lazy and didn't feel like is also the first time I go public with a story, and I'll have you people know that this story is going to combine elements from the anime, game and manga and whatever I feel like to fill in the holes. Another thing that people should note is that I have no morals, meaning anything goes in this fic, from character death, to rape, to incest and a multitude of other taboo things. This chapter is pretty light because I was not sure if I should go right into an immoral situation. That aside I'm wondering if I should write lemons in this fic or I shouldn't and upload it to another site that allows it and I'm hoping this won't turn into a PWP.(End Rant)**

**I've read quite a few Pokemon fanfics but I've never seen a story that goes in-depth to how Ash got to his level. Most of them start with him finding legendaries in the first chapter and then kicking ass when he starts his journey and becoming a veritable god by the time he gets to the Indigo Plateau steam rolling the competition. I don't mean to insult the people who do that but really? Using legendaries as if they were so damn common degrades there value and then when they lose against a normal Pokemon that isn't a legendary, another shows up to take the fallen's place. No offense to ARCUES-master and all but at the beginning of his story it was interesting because Ash only had Latios and Latias but then suddenly after winning the Silver Conference he starts catching the Legendaries like there common Pokemon. That just doesn't sit right with me hence why I tried my hand at a story. Expect slow updates since I only write when I feel like it, Most of the time I like being the reader more instead of the yes, I also modified a phrase from Naruto, I don't know why I put it there so don't bother asking, I don't know what I was thinking sometimes.**

**This fic will build up slowly so don't expect Ash to be anywhere near ready for journeying. My fic will also go into the technical side of Pokemon such as breeding, theory and all that along with an observant Ash. Since I'm not used to writing from different points of views expect the views to change randomly because even I can't tell what I'm writing sometimes. I will also be messing around with the timeline, nothing that will mess up the other regions but expect Ash to be EXTREMELY competent in the things he does. I guess that's all for now, until my desire to write pops up again. Bai-Baiz.**


	2. Cook,Nerd,and Carpenter?

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.**

* * *

It's been three months since Ash asked his mother to teach him how to cook properly in preparation for his Pokemon Journey.

During the start of the lessons, he found out he was a natural disaster in a kitchen, he seemed to have been able to over cook rice with an automatic rice cooker, his mom wouldn't let him anywhere near vegetables because the last time he tried washing them, he turned them to mush because he used to much force, and his mother wouldn't let him anywhere near a knife, as she stated "You're a natural disaster with somethings that shouldn't be possible, so no you can't use a knife, if your streak keeps up you'll end up leaving cut marks all over the place"

That was a depressing day in his opinion, the first day in his short life where his mother _actually_ put him down instead of scolding him like she normally did, but he preserved and now after three months he could proudly say that he was now no longer a natural disaster, now he was a damn novice at cooking. He knew that somewhere out in the world it wasn't something to be proud of but he knew that for a seven and half-year old child that went from natural disaster to novice, it was a huge improvement, he was pretty sure he was a genius. After all no else that he knew of created a dish called egg on rice. It was after all a raw egg mixed with a bowl of rice, which his mother called a "monstrosity" when he first showed her. It took lots of research and testing to find the perfect nutritional balance provided in one meal, all those other days where he tested whether or not chilis,vegetables and a variety of other easily accessible foods went well with cold rice or not and all he had to do was break an egg over it. He mourned the days he spent in bed or on the toilet due to stomach aches caused by the testing and the result was finding out that a simple raw egg and rice made a perfectly nutritional and healthy meal for breakfast. Of course when he explained to his mom that it _wasn't_ a monstrosity, she took an instant liking to it and said, "Now I don't need to _eat_ so much to get enough energy for the day, what do you think dear?". Now Ash knew that question was _dangerous, _even without etiquette lessons he _knew_ that if he answered wrongly, he would find himself on the receiving end of the legendary fist of female fury that all female's seemed to posses. He still had nightmares from when Gary called his sister Daisy flat and witnessed the scene of utter violence, where Daisy Oak _slaughtered _Gary Oak with a smile on her face the whole time, right then and there Ash decided he would carefully watch what he would say in female company Shivering at the memory he did the only thing a man could do in such a situation, he retreated and by retreat he meant get the hell out of the house.

Once he was faraway enough from his home, he paused to observe his surroundings and noticed that he was close to Professor Oaks lab if the high fence to his right was any indication. Deciding to see if he had returned from his trip yet, he headed towards the main entrance. When he got to the entrance, he noticed that the sign denoting that the Professor was out was still up, so he immediately turned around and headed back towards home believing it to be safe now.

What he didn't expect was to bump into Daisy Oak on his way down. Daisy Oak was 9 years old and was about 4'11", which was pretty tall for her age or so people say. She had the same brown hair as Gary albeit a lighter shade than his dark brown which flowed down behind her ending at her mid back. Repressing the urge to run away screaming in fear from what he had seen the last time he saw her, he waved his hand in greeting and said, "hello" like his mother had taught him to during their etiquette lessons. Speaking of those lessons, they were pure hell, so many things that he could no longer do because they were considered rude and if he started to do them, his mother would then start her lessons again and he didn't believe he would be able to survive them.

He saw her look up at him, tilt her head to the side and asked, "Hello to you too, but may I ask what you're doing here?"

He replied with, "I was wondering if Professor Oak was back from his trip yet, I really want to play with the Pokemon again"

"Ah...", she nodded and said, "Sadly you'll have to wait until grandpa comes back from his trip before you can play with them, he should be back in another three months because whatever it is, it's pretty important, so you'll have to find something to do for three months"

"Ahhhh...Okay" Ash started walking down and when he reached the foot of the hill he turned around and shouted "Good bye!" before walking off.

If he had turned around he would've noticed Daisy shaking her head and smiling amusedly at him.

As he was walking home, his mind started wandering to all the stuff he learned in the past three months since he first found the books and poke-balls in the forest. He remembered how he had promised himself that he would learn as much as he could about Pokemon before his Pokemon Journey began so that he would be prepared. He had read the entire book on caring for Pokemon of various types and quizzed himself on it multiple times to make sure he remembered the stuff he read, as it turned out he remembered a lot of it and would only mess up when it came to taking care of rock and ground types because they were so similar. He had also finished reading the guide to survival and was eagerly awaiting when his mother would take him camping so he could test out what he learned. The books on Pokemon Research and Engineering, he was still reading but he was nearly done with the Research book but wanted to remember everything he read, so he took it slowly, while the book on Engineering was interesting even if most of the words he didn't understand, so he had to translate them into smaller words again in order to make sense of it all. Additionally he found out what two other of the poke-balls he picked up were, they were the great-ball and the ultra-ball, poke-balls that had a higher chance of success than its predecessor the poke-ball, they were more expensive than the regular poke-ball but were more commonly used to catch stronger Pokemon in the wild. The others he was still unsure of what they were but he was confident he would find out eventually. He was also confident that he was one of the kids in Pallet Town, after all with the amount of time he spent reading the dictionary translating words, he picked up quite a few words that a seven and a half-year old shouldn't know.

By the time he finished his musings, he noticed that he was in front of his home. Quietly slipping in to not alert his mother that he had returned, he went up to his room and went under his bed to grab the book on Pokemon Research, after retrieving it he set about to reading it.

* * *

Downstairs unaware of the fact that her boy had returned Delia Ketchum was in the midst of preparing lunch.

If one were to look closely, one would notice that her mind was elsewhere, if the vacant look on her face was anything to go by.

Delia Ketchum was thinking. Her boy had shown that he had matured greatly for a child as young as him since she had started giving him lessons on etiquette and cooking. Now she was wondering if he was responsible enough to watch over a Pokemon. Shaking her head of such thoughts, she chided herself for thinking so far ahead while thinking that he may not be responsible enough to care for a Pokemon, but she was sure he was responsible and mature enough to register as a Pokemon Trainee, they were basically Trainer's who registered themselves with the Pokemon League and would be mailed a work book asking questions about what they knew and understood of Pokemon and situations that they might experience in their future journey and how they would react. After completing the workbook and mailing it back to the League, they would grade it and then mail the scores back to the testers. If the testers had passed, they would be given a temporary trainer license that worked the same as a trainer card but they weren't allowed to own more than three Pokemon because they weren't official trainer's only trainee's. The Trainee cards also served as a membership to the Pokemon Associations Official site, which could access data on trainers based on one's own clearance rank. The Trainee program also has the added advantage of giving the trainee more freedom then a trainer registered under a guardian. If Delia remembered her gossip right, Gary Oak had his grandfather register him as a Trainer, but the thing about that was that even though he was now a Trainer, he wouldn't be allowed his own Pokemon until his guardian believed him ready, and if one were already a trainer then they were barred from the Trainee program. They each had there own pro's and con's, but a Trainee earned their privilege through their own knowledge, while a Registered Trainer had to have the confidence of his/her guardian to receive his/her own Pokemon. Snapping herself out of her musings, she got around to setting up the table for lunch.

When she was done setting up, she went upstairs to see if Ash had returned home yet. So she was surprised to find him in his room when she didn't hear him entering their home, then again she was a bit out of it, she was more surprised when she saw him reading, a book on Pokemon Research if the title was anything to go by. She noticed he seemed to be reading quite intently since he didn't seem to notice her standing at the door. So she cleared her throat and made a "Uh Hm!" sound.

She saw her boy look up in shock and quickly tried hiding the book behind his back.

Smiling at this she asked, "Ash dear, where did you get that book and why are you trying to hide it?"

He just looked away guiltily and said, "I found it near the forest near here on the floor, it looked like it was there for a while so I picked it up and started reading it when I brought it home"

"You still haven't answered why you're trying to hide it" she pressed.

Looking more guilty she heard him mumble something before sinking deeper into himself.

Lowering herself to his eye level, she looked at him and asked, "Please repeat that?"

Looking her in the eye she heard him clearly say, "I wanted to keep it a secret so you wouldn't get mad at me"

Hugging her boy at this she said, "You don't have to keep secrets from me, you could just tell me and I won't get angry just because your reading a book you found on the floor"

Ending the embrace and looking him in the eye's she asked, "Now are there any other secret you're keeping from you mommy?"

Seeing him look away she assumed that there were and waited patiently for him to open up.

After 5 minutes she heard him say, "I also read a book about Pokemon Care for different types of Pokemon, and a pamphlet about trainer tips and a bit about a book on engineering and I also found some poke-balls in a small bag and I found a Pokemon Egg Incubator"

Gently facing her boy she asked if she could see them. He slowly got up and headed towards the drawer and took out a small bag, then went under his bed to bring out three other books and a pamphlet, and then carefully took the PEI out from under his bed.

Asking if she could look at them , she saw him nod, lifting him onto her lap and slowly flipping through the books and pamphlets, she noticed lots of paper crammed inside them, slowly unfolding one she found it to be a translation of the book in simpler words, she noticed that it was the same for the book on Pokemon Care and the Survival Guide, while the engineering book only had a few at the beginning. Putting the books down and looking at the small bag, she opened it and let out an audible "Oh!". Seeing her boy look up at her with fear she reassured him that she was just surprised with the contents is all, she's not mad at him. pulling him closer to her, she heard him ask what the poke-balls were. She raised an eyebrow at this, he must've noticed because he immediately starting stammering out he only knew what the poke,premier,great and ultra-ball were, the rest he wasn't sure. She giggled at this and said, "You wouldn't know what these are because most of these aren't created in Kanto, they're from other regions, such as this one" picking up the grey one with two blue markings on it side "this one is a heavy-ball used to catch Pokemon that are real heavy, the creator is Kurt from Azalea town on the Jotho side, who made this from an Apricorn native to the Johto region while this" picking up the black one with fancy lines "is a luxury-ball which is very expensive but the Pokemon caught with this will be your friend faster, this was created by Devon Corporation in the Hoenn region while this" picking up a pinkish one with a heart as a button "is a heal-ball that heals the Pokemon you caught with it, it's native to the Sinnoh region". After finishing her explanation she saw Ash looking up at her with a look of admiration. Smiling down at him and asking, "Yes?".

She heard him say, "Wow mom, you're so smart! How do you know about this?"

Shaking her head amusingly she said, "Before I settled down I was an apprentice to Professor Oak, so it was only natural that I know stuff like this"

"I didn't know you used to be Professor Oak's Apprentice, why didn't you tell me?" Ash asked.

Shaking her head again she said, " I forgot, sorry dear" lifting him off her lap, she stood up and said, "Now put this stuff away and let's go downstairs for lunch, with the amount of time we spent here the food will most likely be done cooling, now lets go"

"OK mom" Ash replied. Heading back downstairs Delia thought _"Definitely going to ask him if he wants to take the test to be a Pokemon Trainee, he already knows a lot about Pokemon Care if the notes I caught a glimpse of were any indication and the notes inside the Research Book showed he had an interest in that area as well"_.

* * *

Once Ash was done putting the books on the table and the bag back inside the drawer while the PEI went back under his bed, he couldn't help but smile. His mom wasn't angry at him for keeping secret from her, instead she told him he could come to her asking for help if he ever needed it.

Heading downstairs for lunch, he saw his mom sitting at the table waiting for him. Smiling to himself, he went over to his seat and sat down and looked at his mom. As if a signal went off, they both started to slowly eat lunch. It was a routine that Ash had gotten used to over the last three months, if he didn't show proper etiquette then his mom wouldn't let him eat until he got it right. Let it be said that a hungry stomach is great motivation in order to do something right. Another routine while eating was that his mom would ask him random questions and he would answer to the best of his abilities while keeping his manners in check. Today however he was surprised when he heard her question.

She asked, "Ash dear, do you want to take the test to be a Pokemon Trainee?"

Ash paused in his eating and slowly swallowed his food before asking, "Pokemon Trainee? What's that?"

"A Pokemon Trainee is a basically a Pokemon Trainer, however a Trainee can only have up to three Pokemon, and can't travel without an adult escort, they can also access the Pokemon Association website with the temporary Trainer ID they give you, but your clearance level will be minimal until you become a trainer which it is then locked under a Pokemon Professor of your choice, you can also give other people your Clearance ID so that they can access your data, in order to be a Trainee, you have to send them a letter asking for a work book that they will send you, after that you'll have to answer the work book to the best of your ability without help and send it back, if you pass they send you your grade and Temporary Trainer ID, if you fail you have to wait another year before taking the test again" she explained.

By the time she was done Ash was on cloud nine, if he passed this test he could be a Pokemon Trainee, not a Trainer but it was close enough, after all like what all researchers say, one step at a time was proof of that. Quickly nodding his head he chirped out a "Yes please!"

His mom smiled at his answer and they returned to eating, with his mom occasionally asking questions about what he had learned from the books, and he would in turn answer her with his own opinions of what he learned.

By the time lunch was done it was one o' clock in the afternoon, so Ash decided to head back to the forest where he originally found his loot, ever since his lessons he asked his mom to teach him started, along with him reading the other books, he hadn't visited the forest in three months and was now wondering if there would be anything new to greet him.

When he got to the edge of the forest he noticed immediately that the place was a lot messier then three months ago. It would seem that the Pokemon of the forest were quite busy if all the new stuff strewn all over was any indication. Moving around to see if anything interesting could be salvaged, he was pleasantly surprised to find a few fairy tales about various Pokemon in an old-looking book and a couple of potions and a paralyze heal. Other than those, there was a broken telephone terminal if the cracked screen was anything to go by, he briefly wondered how it got there before shrugging it off as unimportant, there was also what looked like an assortment steel rods lying around all over the place. Moving deeper into the forest he noticed that the Pokemon seem more relaxed then he could remember, then again it _was_ summer, so maybe Pokemon liked to relax during this time, he would have to research it later, perhaps the seasons affected how Pokemon acted in general.

By the time he entered the small clearing that he last explored it was notably messier then before, more so then the entrance of the forest. Looking around, he noticed a toolbox lying not far from him, moving closer towards it, he kneeled down and proceeded to open it to see what was inside, he was disappointed to find only screwdrivers of various types, clamps, some wire, tape, a knife,a hammer and some nails. Remembering the broken telephone terminal at the entrance and the book on engineering he had, he smiled as an idea quickly formed in his mind. The only thing that was missing was a guide explaining how each part of the telephone worked. Picking up the tool box along with his book and healing items, he took a cursory glance around the area and noticed a worn out tarp, immediately picking it up he headed back towards the entrance and set the tool box on top of the broken telephone terminal and covered it with the worn out tarp. Grabbing the assortment of metal rods, he used them to anchor the tarp to the ground covering up the telephone terminal from the elements. Getting up and heading towards the edge of the forest, he promised himself that he would find out how the terminal worked, and to learn more on engineering before he attempted to work on the idea that was slowly being formed in his mind. Heading back home to store his newly acquired loot, his mind wandered to why Professor Oak was on a trip for so long this time, he normally went on trips that didn't last more than three months and now he was going to be gone for another 6 months.

Moving on to another matter, his mom had asked him if he wanted to be a Pokemon Trainee! While it wasn't as good as being a Trainer, it was still better than nothing. If he passed the test he would be allowed to have three Pokemon! That was what Ash was most excited about, being able to keep his own Pokemon! He remembered Professor Oak once saying that a normal adult civilian was only allowed to have one Pokemon registered to them, while a retired Pokemon Trainer was allowed to keep the ones they had caught on their journey while researchers were allowed to keep as many as they could take care of. That meant that if he wanted to learn as much as he could about Pokemon, he would have to aim to be a researcher, while also preparing for his Pokemon Journey.

* * *

By the time Ash reached home, the sun was starting to set, bathing the mountains hiding it from view with an unearthly glow of orange. Entering his home he called out, "I'm home!" to alert him mom that he was back. When he got no answer, wondered where she was but decided to shrug it off, if she wasn't home, she would've left a note, since there wasn't any, he assumed she was tired and was resting.

Heading to his room to deposit the stuff he scavenged for the day he idly wondered what his mom did on days where she was all alone in the house. After all there was only so much one could do in a house devoid of anything that displayed any sort of hobby or interest. After putting away his stuff, he headed back downstairs and peered into the kitchen. When he didn't see his mom there preparing dinner, he thought of going to look for her but decided against it. To him this was a chance test out a new recipe he researched into creating. Well it wasn't really researching, more of a mix and match sort of thing to give the most efficient amount of cards and vitamins in one single dish instead of various dishes lain out everywhere.

This time he would be combining white rice and curry with some honey and grated apple. This way the rice along with the curry would give at least 8 hours of energy and the extra curry and grated apple would add a sweet taste to it making it tastier.

* * *

By the time Delia showed up at the entrance of **her** kitchen, she saw her son setting up the table, placing a plate of what looked like curry and rice where she normally sat.

When he looked up and saw her, he smiled and said, "hello mom"

She nodded at him. "May I ask what sort of meal this is supposed to be _this_ time?"

"Ahhhh... I call it curry rice because it's basically curry and rice with some honey and grated apple to give it some extra flavor, don't worry! I properly tested it and it tastes pretty good" he said while grinning sheepishly.

"Okaaaay..." she trailed off.

"C'mon mom test it out before making an opinion"

Letting out a sigh. "Alright, I'll try it out". Sitting down and mentally preparing herself while her boy took his seat, she brought her spoon to her mouth,steeled her nerves and took a bite. Jolting up at the flavors exploding in her mouth after it entered her mouth, she slowly chewed noting the different flavors that combining rice and curry together did to the original taste. Having another bite, she found that the taste was indeed better than just regular rice and curry, looking up at her boy she saw the look of anticipation on his face.

"It tastes very good dear" she said.

Hearing this, he pumped his right arm with a sense of accomplishment.

"However I'm sure it can be better, like using less of the grated apple, since it seems like to much of it eliminates the taste of spice from the curry" she critiqued.

"Ah...Okay, I'll remember that the next time I make it", Delia nodded at this.

"By the way mom, when will you sign me up for the Trainee program?" Delia paused. "I'll be giving the League a call tomorrow and signing you up will happen then, until then you better study up, I have some books from when I was an apprentice to Professor Oak that I brought out, so be sure to go read some of them OK dear?"

Ash looked up. "Is that why you weren't making dinner today?"

Nodding she said, "That's right I was busy looking over some of the books I brought out and I lost track of time, sorry about that dear"

Shaking his head he replied, "It's OK, I was able to test out a new recipe today, so I'm happy about it"

"In that case, be sure to look over the book later, I left the ones you will most likely need in your room, with you studying so diligently I might as well go back to studying Pokemon Research again". After that they went back to eating Ash's new recipe until they were done.

While Delia went off to start the cleaning the few dishes, Ash went to take a bath so he could read over the books that his mom left in his room.

* * *

When Ash went back into his room, he noticed there was a small stack of books on his desk next to his dictionary. Looking over there titles he was surprised by the variety of them, one went onto to explaining the diets of each Pokemon type, another detailed how to create poke-chow for various Pokemon, another detailing status conditions to Pokemon and there adverse effects on them, and another dealing with common sicknesses for specific types of Pokemon.

Picking up the book on creating poke-chow he got right into reading it, after all he was already learning how to cook, so learning how to make poke-chow should be very similar.

By the time he finished reading he knew the basics to creating poke-chow, which involved grounding up a multitude of berries, then mixing them together, followed by adding a few Chansey eggs, beating the mix and then pouring the mixture into small indents on a tray and heating them up, or if you're in the wild to heat them up for a bit till they aren't purely liquid then kneading the batter into desired shapes followed by more heating. Of course this was the most basic step and the taste would be plain. According to the book, one must be able to add their own ingredients into the mix to create their own types of poke-chow.

Looking at his clock, he noticed that it was almost time for bed, deciding to head to bed for now he went off to do his pre-bed routine in the bathroom.

* * *

During the night when Ash was sleeping, he once more dreamed of that soft voice that he couldn't hear correctly. Although it wasn't a common occurrence, it was still something of a monthly visitor. This time all he could hear was _"co...e...q...i...c...y...p...t...r...q.u...y...p...e...". _After that he would wake up like the last 3 times he heard it. Leaving it as a mystery for another day, he got up, rubbed the sleep from his eye's and went downstairs to prepare an early breakfast, after all it was only 6:22 A.M and he knew his mom wouldn't wake up till around 7, that gave him about 40 minutes to prepare breakfast.

By the time he was done making breakfast, it was almost 7 o' clock. The breakfast itself was simple, just bacon and eggs sunny side up with a glass of orange juice. Deciding to finish his pre-breakfast routine, he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he was done to went to check if his mom was awake yet. Going up to her door and knocking, he waited for a reply. When he heard a muffled groan, he thought of that as an affirmative, so he was shocked to see that his mom was still in bed with books scattered around her.

"Mom? What are these books for?" while looking around.

"Ah...These books were when I was still an apprentice under Professor Oak, now that they were out yesterday, I decided I would refresh my memory by reading some of them."

"Um..Mom, just how long were you reading, you don't look like you got any sleep."

"...I forgot."

-sigh-,"alright mom stay here, I'll be right back". Leaving the room and heading towards the kitchen, he pulled a tray from the cabinet next to the refrigerator and placed breakfast on it. Heading back to his moms room, he slowly watched where he was going to make sure he didn't trip and make it mess. Getting to the foot of his moms bed, he placed the tray on a bedside table and said,"here mom, breakfast to help you wake up faster".

Idly thanking her boy for bringing breakfast to her, she slowly started eating while her boy went to get his breakfast as well. Re-entering his moms room with his own tray of breakfast, he set it on himself and slowly started to eat.

"So mom, may I ask why you were reading till so late at night besides refreshing yourself?"

Pausing in her breakfast she thought about an answer and said,"Well dear, since I'm signing you up to take the Trainee program test, I decided that I might as well catch up as well. After all if you pass the test, you'll be a temporary trainer, but you'll need me to go with you if you want to go anywhere by yourself and it'll fall on me to teach you as much as I can about taking care of Pokemon, making Pokemon food and other stuff like that. So I thought, if I'm going to teach you, I might as well pick up my studies on Pokemon again and if I'm lucky, I'll be able to get my Pokemon Research Mastery by the time you start your Pokemon Journey, that way, I'll be able to personally give you a Pokedex for when you start your journey and you'll be able to help me expand on my research dear."

Blushing and looking down Ash muttered, "sorry"

"Don't be dear, that's if I'm lucky enough get my Mastery in 2 and a half years, it normally takes about 5 years after all."

Nodding, they both went back to eating their breakfast which was slowly getting cold.

* * *

After breakfast, Ash went back upstairs to continue with his studies while his mom went to call up the league to sign Ash up for the Trainee program.

Inside his room, he decided to continue reading the book about poke-chow after all, the faster he finished reading it, the faster he could start incorporating it into his normal cooking and trying to find new recipes to suit different Pokemon tastes. Although he would have to wait until he actually _got_ Pokemon first before he could test them if he made them.

By the time he finished reading the book, he was well aware of the fact that poke-chow was tied closely with the Pokemon personality and its own type. For example, fire types would be more inclined to spicy poke-chow while grass and bug types would be more inclined to sweet poke-chow. Also that depending on how a berry is processed or grounded, the taste would be different, so he made a mental note to properly understand how to bring out the various types of flavors in the berries.

Getting up and stretching his stiff body, he heard a satisfying crack from his spine. Looking at the time, he noticed that it was 15 minutes till 12, so quickly getting dressed for outdoor's and heading downstairs, he passed his mom in the living room and called to her, "I'm going to be heading off for the day mom!"

Looking up from her books, "Okay dear, do remember to get back before it gets dark"

"Okay!" he replied, before running out the door towards the forest.

* * *

Once at the edge of the forest, he quickly headed straight in hoping to finally explore more of the forest that he didn't have the time to explore before. As he went deeper and deeper into the forest, he noticed that there seemed to be a lot of stuff lying around as he got deeper into the forest and progressively the trees seemed to go higher and higher as he did so. By the time he stopped, it was only because of a river that was more than 20 meters wide blocking his path. As he peered into the river, he let out a yelp, inside the river were various items being washed away downstream or stuck on top of other stuff that was jutting out of the water. Looking upstream he could faintly make out a speck of light in the distance between the large trees now towering over him.

Deciding that now would be a good time to slowly retrace his steps, he slowly walked backwards, keeping an eye out for anything that could prove useful later on, or something that caught his eye. As he looked around he noticed another broken phone terminal lying nearby. Idly wondering if he should bring this one to the edge of the forest, just in case the one there is to far gone to be salvaged. Looking around he noticed a few lengths of rope and a large wooden plank half buried under the dirt. Grinning mischievously he slowly got about to making a contraption to bring the terminal to the edge. Wrapping the various lengths of rope around the plank after forcing it under the terminal, he slowly got to dragging it towards the edge, while doing so, placing items of interest on the plank as well, a fishing rod, some worn out tarp's, a few books, some bricks, a few glass containers, and a mirror that was cracked at the edges.

By the time he finished dragging his loot to the edge, he saw the sky was slowly turning towards dusk and soon the moon would rise. So he got to work with sorting the loot he found in the forest today. Between the stuff that he could bring home, the stuff that would come in handy later or the stuff that was too large to fit into his small room. He kept a few of the books that he saw were interesting along with glasses of berries that would be stored for later uses. The bricks and other stuff were to be kept close to the edge of the forest.

Ash frowned at this, sooner of later he would need to find a place to store all the stuff he found, after all he doubted his mom would appreciate him bringing stuff into the house every other over what would be a good place to store stuff, the only thing he could come up with was a hidey hole or a lot of boxes. He frowned. LARGE boxes. Shaking his head he started heading towards home since it was starting to get real dark

* * *

Ash frowned, his mom was so smart, so why was she not a professor already like Professor Oak? She knew so much about Pokemon that it made him feel it would be impossible to learn as much as he could about Pokemon. That was how outclassed he felt when listening to his mom explain to him the concepts of evolution, dietary needs, differences of various types of Pokemon. Frowning once more, he made it his new goal to help his mom get a Pokemon Research Mastery before he started his Pokemon Journey. After all, if his mom was a Professor that meant that when he started his journey, she would be the one to personally give him his Pokedex and he could work as a field researcher for his mom. Nodding at this plan of action, he went back to trying to fall asleep, after all he could plan more in the morning, for now he had a rough plan thought up of.

When morning came around Ash found out that he would wake up earlier and earlier, shrugging if off as excitement for the day, he quickly got dressed and started making breakfast, after all today he planned to a small house near the forest so that he could store the stuff he found inside, after all he had to make sure they were protected from the elements. He was lucky none of his books had ever gotten wet, and it hadn't rained in months, since it was still summer, so he was pretty lucky, but it was quickly approaching the rainy season. So he needed to make sure that by the time it started, that nothing he was working on would get wet.

As he finished up making breakfast, he quickly ate his own and covered up his mom's in plastic so that she wouldn't need to worry about it being cold by the time she woke up. Quickly going back upstairs to change into his outdoor clothes he was out of the door by 7 o'clock, but not before leaving his mom a message that he was going out for a day.

By the time he was at the edge of the forest, he already had a semi workable made up, but first he had to go and gather more materials, so he quickly started scouting around the area for anything that he could use to make his "house", after all he had the toolbox with a full compartment of nails, so the only thing he was missing now was the materials needed to build it. While scouting around the area, he found a small clearing with a small stream running through it, on further inspection he also saw that it was blocked off by lots of trees that seemed to act as a natural barrier. In other words, it was a perfect place to hide a small home while also making it easily accessible since the place seemed rarely explored. Quickly heading back to the edge of the forest, he quickly picked up his portable contraption from yesterday and started lugging it towards the clearing not so faraway.

As he was doing so, he attracted a lot of attention from the local Pokemon who knew who the boy was but didn't know what he kept doing in their forest besides collecting stuff that they found useless. By the time he lugged all the stuff into the clearing Ash was sweating, he never did this much manual labor in his life at all. Sitting down to regain his breath he quickly started plotting how he would set up a house in this clearing. First he would dig a bit below the ground and use the bricks as the groundwork, then he would cover that up with wood. The walls would be wooden planks stabbed into the ground with rocks on the side holding it up against the wind. The roof would also be made from wooden planks but instead they would be layered on top of each other twice and covered by a tarp, that way it would prevent rain from entering. He would also need to cover his roof with dirt so that the water could be absorbed by the dirt making it harder for the roof to leak, but not too much dirt to prevent the roof from collapsing. The door would not exist yet, due to not knowing HOW to make a door, instead he would just get wooden planks and make a sliding mechanism similar to those doors he saw on television that didn't swing open but slid side to at this he quickly got up and went back to searching for materials to help him construct his home away from home.

* * *

It was now noon and Ash had made over 10 visits back to the clearing to drop off the materials he salvaged from around the area. All the stuff he brought back were either stuff that caught his attention or stuff that he would be using to help build his "house" but in his revised opinion it would be more of a hovel, he would think about a house AFTER he found out how to make one. Hence for now he would work on making a hovel that could contain the stuff that he couldn't bring back home due to their large size or their lack of function because of no electricity or he just wasn't interested in the subject for now.

So went Ash's day where he started the basic construction of his hovel. He first dug up a bit of the dirt near the stream in a rough shape of a rectangle, followed by lining the edges with bricks and filling the inside with more. Making sure that the bricks had a higher ground then the dirt incase it rains, it wouldn't flow onto the floor of his hovel, he grabbed the wooden planks he gathered and started creating a floor out of them, cutting them down to size and evening them up with the miniature saw he found inside the toolbox. He then grabbed the long rods he had from a while ago and started stabbing them into the corners of the rectangle he made, making sure to reinforce them to prevent them by falling by pushing them into 1 foot holes surrounded by rocks and held up by more rocks.

Stepping back to see his handiwork, he saw how it was slowly starting to assemble a tent he once saw but without the cloth used to cover the roof. Looking up, he saw that it was approaching midday if the sun was any indication. So making sure that the poles were held up steadily and wouldn't just fall over, he ran home for lunch before coming back to continue building his hovel.

* * *

While eating lunch with his mom he heard her say "I've made the call, they said that the test booklet should be here in at least a week, so make sure you study ok dear?"

"Okay mom, I'll start studying later"

"Good, I too am studying the books I have and dear me, I seem to have forgotten a lot of it"

Ash tilted his head."Eh? But you're so smart, how can you forget it?"

Delia giggled at this. "Ash dear, if you don't go over stuff you learn now and then, you'll end up forgetting it, and it's been over 7 years since I last touched these books, it's only normal that I end up forgetting about most of the stuff"

Ash made an "O" expression before asking, "Does that mean I'll forget about stuff too?"

"Yes dear, you'll forget stuff too, so make sure you always go over what you know so you don't end up forgetting okay?" Delia replied.

"Okay mom"

* * *

Ash was once more at the clearing he found today and once more started working on his hovel. However there was a problem, he wasn't sure what to use as the wall, if he used wood, then it would be prone to fall over unless it was held up, the bricks he saved could be stacked up to make a wall, but the cracks would allow water to seep through it.

"Ah! Just use a wooden plank as a wall, held up with the stacked up bricks!"

Plan thought he went to start stacking the bricks on top of each other near the groundwork. Once that was done he started planting wooden planks sideways on top of each other leaning towards the brick wall. He had to carefully step on top of different stacks of bricks to be able to reach the suitable height for a wall, but he made it. Standing back to check his handiwork, he was a proud of himself to be able to build a wall that was at least double his own height. Now he just needed to do the same to the other 3 walls, joy.

Sighing, Ash once more got back to stacking bricks and wooden planks to build the other 3 walls, although he ran out of materials a couple more teams prompting him to go on hold to gather more materials. By the time he finished the 2nd wall, it was getting dark, so calling it a day, Ash started heading towards home.

At home he noticed that the living room seemed to be a bit different, as though there was a change of some sort in the house that he wasn't aware of. Looking around for the change, he didn't see much change at all besides a moved piece of furniture and an extra table near a corner. Shrugging it off for now, he went upstairs to get changed before dinner.

During the dinner he asked, "Why does the living room feel different from before?"

"Ah? That, I bought out an extra studying table for when your exam shows up, that way I can keep an eye on you while also doing my own studies"

"Oh? Did you already register me for the exam?"

"Oh yes! It was very simple, all they asked for was your name, your address, your guardian and age, after you pass the test you can go online to add all the other information"

"When does the exam get here?"

"It will take about 2 weeks after all, it's coming from the Indigo Plateau which is pretty far away from here, in the meantime you should use this time to study more, after all even though you have all the time in the world to become a trainee, it becomes pointless after you become a trainer, at least it will if there wasn't a bonus for being a trainee for a set amount of years."

Ash looked confused. "Bonus?"

"Yes, a bonus" Delia responded. "It's like an incentive to get people, generally children below the age 10, to become a trainee while waiting for them to be able to become trainers. The bonus changes from year to year, but it's always something that can help trainers get used to traveling, sometimes a custom bicycle to help trainers travel faster, or they send trainers to travel with aspiring Pokemon professors, breeders and others, even an extra starter Pokemon for when you start your journey."

"They give you a free Pokemon!?" Ash shouted after listening.

"Sometimes, not all the time, it depends on the Pokemon that have been born or abandoned by trainers" Delia replied.

"So if I'm a trainee, I have a chance at getting a bonus when I become a trainer?"

"That's right, it's all based on what the Pokémon Association chooses each year, so now you have more reason to study hm?"

Nodding enthusiastically Ash resumed eating his dinner while his brain raced with plans to study, after all if they gave bonuses to trainees, why wasn't everyone a trainee before they became a Pokemon trainer? Conclusion, becoming a trainee was a very hard test which most people failed and he Ash Ketchum WOULDN'T allow himself to fail.

* * *

When dinner was done, Ash looked forward to when the test would arrive, along with completing his hovel, after all when he became a trainee, he would be allowed his own Pokemon and he would become best friends with it. They could explore the forest together and have fun, but he would have to make sure what his other two Pokemon were since, he would only be allowed have 3 Pokemons before he became a trainer. With that in mind Ash fell asleep to dreams of taking the test and passing with flying colors and getting his first Pokemon.

* * *

**AN: Urgh, I can see why arthurs take forever to release stories now, I had the first half of this done in less than 1 week after I released the first chapter, the other half had to be done over a course of from then to now. Who knew muses could be so key to staying motivated to continue writing up a plot. Some people might say that I should just post what I have, but I feel like leaving some plot holes so I can fill them in later, but sometimes I end up explaining too much and getting side tracked.**

**Hopefully I'll find my writing style soon, since this chapter was annoying to write, if you'll notice in this chapter there's various ways of writing I tried. So I apologize if it's annoying to read. If you could give me some general ideas to expand on it'll be helpful for when I run out of ideas for this -baiz.**


	3. New Regulations? Possible Rivals? What?

**Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon.**

* * *

It had been a week since his mom told him when the workbook would arrive, and the more he thought about it the more antsy he got. After all if he failed he would have to wait a year to retake it, wouldn't that make it a test and not a workbook? How does that even work!? Also what would be on the test? Would it be about stuff he knew or would it be about stuff that he never read about? Shaking his head, he tried the banish the thoughts that plagued his mind since last week. Going back to studying for the test that was one week away, he started reading about how the Pokemon Association came to be.

Apparently it was created when Silph Co. and Devon Corporation both started mass producing poke-balls instead of going to Kurt in the Johto region to create poke-balls. After mass-production started, Pokemon were slowly no longer regarded as magical creatures, instead they were now tools for wars,fights,construction and a whole slew of other roles. The trainers that eventually banded together to create the Pokemon Association preached that Pokemon shouldn't be used as tools, but as partners that would grow together with them. Eventually their preaching worked and they were unanimously called an organization that promoted partnership between Pokemon and their Trainers, while the radicals formed organizations of their own which still abused Pokemon. Awhile later a war was fought between these organizations and the band of trainers that promoted partnership won and went on to create the Pokemon Association that made it their job to regulate Pokemon Trainers, to make sure no Pokemon were abused. The organization that lost split up and went their separate ways while keeping their ideal of "Pokemon are just tools".

Ash personally thought that the group that split up became a "Team" in different regions. Like Team Rocket in the Kanto and Johto regions, where they repeatedly steal Pokemon from Trainers, Pokemon Centers, Preserves and Ranches, their goals are unknown and Officers are having a hard time trying to arrest them due to the fact that they used ruthless tactics, such as explosives, extortion, blackmail, even fronts as Pokemon Daycare Centers.

Shaking his head once more Ash read on hoping to cram as much knowledge as he could into his head for the test that was coming.

* * *

Delia sighed. Her son hadn't left the house since one week ago when she told him that the workbook would arrive in two weeks, now he was locked in his room cramming as much information he could. Maybe she shouldn't have told him to study, but her boy was just asking to be teased with his excited expression when he learned about the bonus he could get after he became a trainer from trainee. As far as she remembered the Trainee Workbook itself was easy, but the reason most people didn't want to take it was because it involved lots of theoretical situations that had to be answered with your own knowledge and there was an essay part that required the taker to go out into the wild and observe the natural habitat of Pokemon in the area, making observations and conclusions based on them. After submitting it, the league would assess whether the information was correct after that it was just a matter of waiting for the league to send either a letter signifying failure or a box signifying a pass.

She hadn't meant to pressure her boy so much that he became a recluse trying to study as much as he could before the book arrived. Delia sighed once more and headed up towards her boy's room. At the door, she knocked gently and called out, "Ash dear, are you there?". She heard a muffled reply,"What is it mom?"

"Ash dear, please do go out sometime, I know I told you to study hard but not so much that you haven't gone out in one week, kids your age should have fun, not study for days on end"

"But mom! I need to study! What if I don't pass and don't become a trainee, I would have to wait another year before I can take the test again!"

"Dear, you do remember that the workbook can be sent back anytime before 3 months have passed right? So why are you worried that you'll fail? You have 3 months to take your time answering the questions after all"

A chair scraping against the floor and rapid footsteps followed by a door slamming open, revealed one Ash Ketchum who had bags under his bloodshot eyes staring up at her like she killed his dreams. After one minute of awkward silence Delia asked, "You really forgot about that...?"

Ash looked down at this but she could make out a blush on his cheeks. Smirking at this she teased further. "You did, didn't you?"

Ash shrunk into himself and looked like he wanted to disappear. Shaking her head at this she knelt and looked at her boy. "Ash dear, it's okay if you forget, you're still young, so it's okay to be impulsive like what you did for the past week, but remember that you shouldn't lose sight of details while pursuing your goals."

She saw her boy nodding at her and continued on. "Now dear, why don't you get out of the house for a bit, you've been cooped up in your room for too long and your skin is starting to turn pale. Go out and let the sun hit you for a while."

Smiling at her, Ash nodded and headed back into his room. When he was back out, he was dressed for a day outdoors and he proceeded to run out of the house. Shaking her head in amusement she returned to studying more for her Pokemon Research Mastery that she wanted to pursue.

* * *

Ash was feeling worry-free for the first time in a week. How did he forget that he had 3 months to finish the workbook before it had to be submitted, and he foolishly forgot about that detail and thought that it be like a test that had to be finished in one day. Shaking his head, he headed back towards the clearing where he was constructing his hovel hoping that nothing had caused it damage.

When he reached the clearing, he was somewhat surprised to see that his hovel was still exactly as he left it, except for the nest of Pidgeys that seemed to have made his hovel roof their home. Smiling at this he looked towards the pile of items he stashed near the side of his hovel was still there, although there seemed to be a few additions that he wasn't aware of, like a couple of berries and a few pebbles.

Heading into his hovel, he debated whether he should leave the last wall unfinished after all, if he finished it there would be no light at all inside his hovel unless he made a fire pit or found a lamp, both which weren't viable after all his floor and walls were made out of wood, a fire pit would have a chance at spreading and he wasn't willing to take the risk of his hovel catching fire anytime soon, and a lamp needed electricity, anything else would make it a fire hazard unless he got a flash light of some sort with infinite power supply. Sighing he just decided that he would leave one side of his hovel open to let natural light filter through, but he would need to find curtains to cover it up eventually, just in case.

With that issue done with, Ash started to slowly move all his stuff into the hovel, the books went into one corner, while containers were next to it and on the opposite side of the hovel the two broken computer terminals were put there with the tools and materials.

"Hm, I'm going to need shelves to put everything...". With that thought, Ash once more set out to salvage materials,remembering that the river he discovered was full of materials, he made that his destination to salvage stuff.

When he got to the river in question he noticed that there was more junk inside the river then from what he remembered and was he seeing things or was the water level smaller than before. Shrugging his head he started looking for anything that could be used to create shelves for his items. Noticing some planks stuck in the river a bit upstream if his eyesight wasn't messing with him, he slowly headed upstream. By the team he reached where he saw the planks, he noticed that the planks in question were blocking the water from flowing, instead the water flew over the top of the makeshift dam. Slowly heading down towards the planks, he started the slow process of removing the planks from the river, after all if he just suddenly disturbed the structure, it could end up falling down completely at once causing a sudden rush of water that would either sweep him away or drown him.

Starting from the top and slowly working his way down was the quickest way to take down the makeshift dam that didn't have a high fatality rate. With that the slow de-clogging of the river started. While he saw slowly de-clogging the river, he noticed he had to be extremely careful after he removed a piece of the plank, because of the sudden lack of "wall" the water tended to surge towards the gap, nearly pushing him into the river and occasionally he would remove a piece of plank and cause a chain reaction causing other stuff making up the dam to fall off and water would just slam right through.

By the time it was approaching late afternoon he had barely de-clogged one-fourth of the river in fear of accidentally falling in and being swept away. Separating the planks from the cloths and other stuff that was stuck in the river, he started the slow process of dragging the planks back to his hovel with cloth tied together to act as a makeshift rope. At his hovel, he separated the planks and left them around the place to dry out from their time inside the river.

Heading back home, he contemplated how big the shelves would have to be and where he would find something that would help keep the wooden planks together, after all some of them were too thin to act as shelves.

* * *

At home Ash had his head on the table waiting for the food to be finished heating up. While waiting he watched his mom continue reading the books she brought up and jotted something down on a piece of paper as she kept reading. Deciding to initiate a conversation he asked, "Mom, just what do you need to get a "Mastery" in order to become a Pokemon Researcher?".

Looking up from her reading, she replied, "Well in order for one to earn a Mastery, one has to write a thesis on a certain subject of Pokemon Research, mostly the subject that you want to be Researcher in. For example Professor Oak is a researcher that studies Pokemon interaction between trainers and how they affect the Pokemon in question. His thesis stated that Pokemon could "bond" to certain trainers they liked and as the bond deepened, the Pokemon would show more power and listened to their trainers without hesitation. This is strange because according to other sources, Pokemon that grow too strong for a trainer will never listen to their trainer because they consider them too weak to control their power, hence why there are cases of trainers having Pokemon that rampage whenever they come out of their poke-ball or just don't listen to their trainers in general."

Ash tilted his head at this."Why is it strange? It seems okay to me since the Pokemon think their trainers can't control their power"

"What's strange is that before the Pokemon evolved, they used to have a bond with their trainers, after they evolved they just suddenly stopped listening to them. This discounts Professors Oak's theory of Pokemon bonding with trainers if all it takes to destroy it is for a Pokemon to evolve, but since no one can come up with a reason for why it happens, it still qualifies as a valid theory."

"Those that mean that Professor Oak is wrong?"

Delia tilted her head. " Hm... he's not wrong per say, more like we are unsure of why it happens and it's a topic for research". Delia stood up and said, "Enough about this, let's eat". With that she went into the kitchen to get the food.

Ash looked at the clock and noticed that time flew by while he was talking with his mom. Getting up, he headed towards the kitchen to help bring the food to the table.

* * *

After dinner, Ash was back in his room studying, but this time he wasn't cramming everything into his head, instead he was reading slowly and this book was fascinating. It was mainly a book of fairy tales, but the fairy tales themselves were _fascinating_ since the Pokemon described in them sounded EXACTLY like those of legendaries he read about. Like the one about the Bird of Rainbow with its companions the Dogs of Water,Fire and Lightning or the Gods of Sea, Ground and Sky or the Rulers of Time, Space and Dimensions, even the Birds of Fire,Ice and Thunder, but his favorites were the Creator of Pokemon and the Ruler of Pokemon. It stated that the Ruler of Pokemon created the first Pokemon's and then from the first batch of Pokemon, one rose up and became the Creator of Pokemon, who created the common Pokemon that was all over the place. Like the Pidgey's, Sentret's, Rattata's he'd seen on his trips into the forest.

Smiling at this, he wondered if the Pokemon in question existed out there constantly creating new Pokemon that have yet to be discovered. He hoped he would be able to see it on his adventures and get a chance to study it, after all every fairytale has a grain of truth to it, it just has to be separated from the fairy tale.

Deciding to head in for the night, he put his book away and let Morpheus grab a hold of him. In his dream though, it would seem that voice had decided to visit him again. This time it was much clearer for some reason, he could distinguish words in it. _"Come...uickly...y...art..r..qui...ly...se."_. When he woke up in the morning he wondered just why he kept having the same dream now and then.

The most obvious reason was that it was some sort of psychic pokemon calling out to him, he wondered just why there would be a psychic pokemon calling out to him especially since Pallet Town had no psychics nearby unless you counted the occasional Hoot-Hoot that flew by during the night during their migration periods. For now though he would keep an eye for any strange Pokemon that were nearby, since a psychic type in Pallet was rare, hence there must be a reason for why it was there or close by at least, otherwise he wouldn't have the same dream with increasing frequency.

* * *

Ash started the day off with a normal breakfast, comprising of bacon, eggs and some toast with orange juice. During the breakfast, Ash had asked his mom some questions regarding her specialization of research. If he remembered correctly, one had to contribute to the pokemon research community in order to obtain a mastery for pokemon research. So he was curious of what branch of pokemon research she was specializing in. He was sure that she would specialize in pokemon behavior among trainers like Professor Oak since she was his apprentice. When she told him what she wanted to specialize in, he was quite surprised when she said all of them.

"Mom, how can you specialize in all types of Pokemon Research?"

"It's easy honey, to specialize in all types of Pokemon Research means to study Pokemon in general, since to study Pokemon is to study everything. The reason other Professors choose to stay in one subject is because they are interested in that subject. Me, I want to research all types because I'm interested in how Pokemon act, live and came to be. That's why I want to specialize in all branches of Pokemon Research."

Ash was rendered speechless at this, if he remembered correctly back when he was 6-years old he had asked Professor Oak why he was a researcher and the reply he got was "It's because when I was a trainer I wondered just why Pokemon listened to us when we basically made them our slaves, as I got older I decided that I want to find out why Pokemon listen to us despite what we've done to them" and he had asked "What have we done to them?", the look Professor Oak gave him was something that he would forever remember. He was still unsure of what that look meant but he was sure he would find out eventually when he became a trainer as well.

Deciding that he didn't really know what to say to his mom after she said that, he just nodded and quietly ate his food.

* * *

After breakfast Ash had once more ventured to his hovel intent on creating the shelves he needed, that way he wouldn't have to worry about everything he found clustering up in his hovel, after all he planned on making it bigger eventually. Now the issue was how to make the shelf itself. He had no prior experience for crafting, so he started with what he remembered of what of shelf looked like. It was basically 3 wooden planks stuck together, but how was it stuck together was the problem. For now he would just arrange the planks until they formed the shape of a shelf. It took less than a minute to assemble a "shelf", but how would he make it stay together? glue wouldn't work, neither would tape. The only real option he had were nails, so he grabbed a handful from his low supply inside the box and slowly started to hammer it into the side of the wood. When it emerged on the other side of the wood, he grabbed the other piece and positioned it above the nail and slowly started to hammer it down. Once that was done, he tested whether it held. It did, he added another nail to the opposite end just in case and did it to the other end of the plank as well. When he was done, the product looked like a wooden swing without the chain holding it up. Adding extra layers to it was somewhat annoying since some of the wooden planks were uneven and had to be cut down to size with a convenient carving knife inside the toolbox. The finished product was a shelf no matter how deformed it looked but it was a bit thin, it wouldn't be able to hold anything heavy nor anything large. At best it could hold glass containers that aren't heavy and maybe some miscellaneous items.

Putting the shelf to a corner, he slowly started placing stuff on it, and while the stuff he placed on it made the hovel look more organized, he still needed someplace to put the books and heavy stuff he found. Resolving to find larger wooden planks later on to create a better shelf, for now he dusted himself off and decided to go off exploring the forest again since he hadn't done so in a while, but first he needed to get home and grab that map he was making of the forest. While it wasn't anything good, it was still better than getting lost.

On his way home though, he saw quite a sight. Gary Oak was talking to two people about something and from the looks of it, he was getting quite angry. Stopping to observe, he noted that it was slowly drawing a crowd that was looking curious about what could've gotten THE Gary Oak angry. As the crowd got closer, the conversation could be heard.

"Why does HE get to have a pokemon when I a trainer DON'T?" Gary near shouted

"Isn't it because your grandpa doesn't think you're responsible enough?" the girl replied

"Responsible? If I wasn't responsible then why did he make me a pokemon trainer, huh!?"

"Annoy...him...make you trainer..." the boy said

Gary rounded on him, "What did you say!"

"Geez didn't you hear him? He said that you annoyed your grandpa and your grandpa decided to make you a trainer to shut you up!" the girl said

Gary grew red at this. " YOU...you...I'll remember this!", with that done he stormed off.

"Bleh!" the girl taunted. "Let's go Red, ignore him", the boy nodded and slowly followed the girl off.

* * *

With the fight over the crowd broke into whispers about what just happened. Ash stuck around to listen in hopes of learning what caused the fight. While listening he heard whispers of what had happened.

"That Gary sure is spoilt, getting mad at Red for having a pokemon"

"Yea, my son had said that Gary was a trainer already but didn't have his own pokemon, when he saw Red who wasn't a trainer have a pokemon he was probably jealous of him."

"Jealous, why that insolent child, doesn't he know that Red is an orphan!?"

"I know, he is so quiet, why if Leaf never defended him, I bet Red would've just let Gary continue talking down to him"

"Indeed, as an orphan Red deserves to have a pokemon companion since he doesn't seem to have many friends because of how quiet he is"

"Yea thank god that Leaf actually defended him, since Red didn't look the least bit interested in what Gary had to say.."

Having heard enough, Ash started heading home, but his mind was a whirlwind of activity. Gary was MAD at someone for having a pokemon before him, the girl Leaf and the guy Red were friends who WON a conversation against Gary. The guy Red already had a pokemon and he wasn't even a trainer. Along with a multitude of other thoughts plaguing his mind, most revolving around Gary,Leaf and Red. In the back of his mind he KNEW that they would be his rivals for when his pokemon journey started.

When Ash got home he headed straight for his books, his plans of exploring the forest forgotten. He knew that Gary would have his own pokemon as soon Professor Oak got back from his trip, after all Ash knew that Gary would never accept being number 2 to anyone. Now that Red had his own pokemon, Gary would want one of his own and he would annoy his grandpa until he got one. That meant he would have an advantage over Ash since he wouldn't be able to get his pokemon until he was a trainer, unless when he became a trainee he found a pokemon to call his own. The chances of that happening was extremely low, so the only way he would be able to win against Gary in the future was if he had more theoretical knowledge instead of experience. At least until he got his own pokemon and got some experience of his own.

* * *

It had been 2 weeks since he found out that Red had a pokemon of his own. When he was town he had heard how Red had found it injured near a pond and slowly nursed it back to health, after that when Red tried releasing it to the wild, it just continued following him around until he asked the matron of the orphanage if he could keep it. The matron being a kindly old woman who looked out for him since he was a baby allowed it, she even went out to get a poke-ball for him to catch the pokemon in and registered Red as a pokemon trainer since she was his legal guardian. Now Ash was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Trainee test, since it had been 3 weeks since he registered and it should be arriving any day now. When it was noon and he went down for a break from his studying he saw a package inside the mailbox. Hurriedly retrieving it from the box, he ripped it open and out came a LARGE stack of papers. Confused he looked at the first page and after reading it started hyperventilating.

Delia having heard the ripping sound from the kitchen where she was preparing lunch had gone to check up on what the noise was. What she hadn't expected to see was her boy holding a piece of paper and hyperventilating. Hurriedly going over to her boy and embracing him, she asked what was wrong. In response Ash just gave her the piece of paper before hugging started reading the paper and as she read further down her eyes widened more.

It stated that due to the fact that the Pokemon Association was in the process of making new regulations about pokemon trainers, the trainee system was to be stopped until further information was released regarding the regulations. For now it apologized and to asked to wait 6 months for the new regulations to be released before the trainee system would be restarted or revamped then restarted to follow any possible changes in the regulation. For now though, it sent the old test and stated that he could do it now to have a better understanding of it when the trainee program restarted or if there were no large changes to the regulation it could be submitted to be graded to see if you made the trainee system.

Holding her boy tighter, she whispered "It's okay dear, it's only 6 more months to find out what the regulations will be, it will fly by, for now just finish up this test to get a better understanding of what it was will be like. After you finish that you're free to do whatever you want until the 6 months are up. So don't worry, enjoy yourself more, don't stay so hung up on the fact that things didn't go your way, move forward regardless."

Holding onto her tighter Ash could only nod and slowly let go. After that he slowly gathered up the papers and brought them upstairs. Delia seeing her boy go up to his room headed back towards the kitchen to prepare lunch. She knew her boy would get pass this, she knew that he had wanted to be a trainee so bad so he would be allowed his own pokemon but she had refused to allow him to be a trainer since that would mean that he would get big-headed over the fact that he was a trainer because she allowed it. She wanted him to earn the right to be a trainer and what better way than for him to become a trainee before becoming a trainer.

* * *

Upstairs in his room Ash had had calmed down a bit and was now mentally preparing himself for the test. Even though it might no longer count he still considered it real, after all if he got arrogant over passing this test then that would be a bad direction he would be heading in. Steeling himself for the test he prepared to start, only to be interrupted by a rumbling coming from his stomach. Blinking and looking down, he started burning up thankful that no one had saw that happen. -giggle-. Hearing a giggle Ash turned around so fast his neck made a snap sound only to see his mom giggling at him. Blinking again, she giggled at him and said "Sorry but I called you for lunch but didn't think you heard me so I came up and then you looked so serious while preparing to start that test that I didn't want to interrupt you but then your stomach..." giggling some more she added "Come on let's go eat before you try your hand at the test".

Staring at her with a red face Ash could only nod and slowly follow her down to eat lunch. The lunch was nothing special although it it looked like the food was getting more and more rushed as time went on. Maybe reading all those books have caused mom to get stressed more easily Ash wondered.

After lunch was strange, as Ash was about to head back upstairs he heard his mom say "Ash dear, please go out some more, you've been cooped up inside the house for 2 weeks and haven't been out as much, you can start the test after dinner, after all it won't be going anywhere anytime soon"

Quietly contemplating the request he nodded and said "Okay mom", before heading upstairs to get the crudely drawn map he had. If he was going to be out for the day then he would get back to drawing the map of the forest that he had neglected for almost a month.

* * *

Getting out his house after 2 weeks of constant study with the intention of going back to his hovel was refreshing, there was no pressure and self made rivals to worry about, all he had to worry about now was whether or not his hovel was still okay after 2 weeks of non-maintenance to it. Deciding to check up on his hovel first, he headed off while also mapping how to get there just to help fill in the space for the map.

When he got there he was quite satisfied to see it still up but looking inside, quite a few of the less heavy stuff was blown about and some stuff was either missing or new stuff showed up. Reorganizing the place up, he made a note to at least try and make sliding doors to prevent stuff from being blown about and pokemon from getting in.

Heading off towards the river, Ash started mapping the location of his hovel into the map, after all just in case he ever forgot he'd have a map to go back to. As he was mapping he had noticed that at the rate he was going he would run out of room quickly, luckily he had extra pieces of paper, but he had to remember where each one would belong to or else it would look discombobulated or inaccurate. Reaching the river, Ash paused to observe just how much he had mapped so far. It seemed that from the beginning of the forest to the river, it was quite long since it took up 3 lengths of paper and that was heading in only a straight line too. His hovel was maybe 50 steps away from the entrance of the forest but the river was at least 300 steps away. Deciding to head downstream, he continued mapping his steps. As he reached 800 he came up to a cove that the water exited into before disappearing around a bend.

Mapping the cove down, he continued walking the border of the cove till he saw a bend and when he peered around it, he gasped. Right around it was a beach that showed the ocean framed by two rock formations jutting from both sides creating an inlet for water to flow in while the water from the cove flowed down into the mapping the place down for later study, he headed back towards the cove. When he was back there he looked inside and noticed that at the bottom of it, there were quite a few items that seemingly flowed down from upstream. Frowning slightly he made a mental note to head upstream eventually and find out just how so many items ended up flowing down the river considering on his way downstream he saw LOTS of items floating downstream, while the heavier ones were dragged by the river currents.

Shrugging he guessed that some mans trash is another's treasure or something like that. For now he would be thankful that he found such useful stuff in the least likely places, after all how many people could boast about finding such useful treasures? Pausing, Ash shook his head. For a second he thought he sounded extremely like Gary that he shuddered a bit at the thought. Continuing onwards back towards his hovel he took a different path while keeping track of his map, after all it would be pointless to map it if he got lost anyway.

By the time he had gotten back to his hovel, it was getting dark. Calling it a day Ash started heading home, there was a test calling for his name after dinner after all and even if it would prove to be pointless later he didn't like doing things half way and then quitting because it became pointless, he was Ash Ketchum the person who would become a Pokemon Master! Quitting anything was a black mark to his resolution reaffirmed Ash headed towards his home.

* * *

After dinner Ash had gone straight to his room. he had put the test off long enough. Now was the time for action and the test demanded to be finished to see where he stood in terms of knowledge. Rifling through the pages, he started separating the test from other pieces of paper that contained information on some things that was given to aspiring trainees.

Starting the test Ash was somewhat surprised by the first question. 'What is a your name?' was a rather weird question to start for a test. Shrugging off the weirdness he answered 'Ash Ketchum'. Reading the next question he was surprised again.'What is your goal?'. It was rather ambiguous but he answered anyway 'My goal is to be a Pokemon Master, as of right now I want to be a trainee'. The next question asked 'How old are you?' and Ash answered with 'seven and three-fourths'. Looking at the next question he was started to get annoyed when it asked 'Why do you want to be a Trainee?'. What was wrong with this test!? Was it some sort of survey!? Answering with 'I wish to be a trainee before I become a trainer before I become a Pokemon Master'. Looking at the next question it asked 'What is the reason for your goal?' he was annoyed. This test was like some sort of personal survey. Looking down and reading the other questions Ash got more and more annoyed the more down he looked, looking at the next few pages didn't help matters at all. The first 5 pages were all personal questions of varying degrees ranging from asking about favorite colors to asking about what his favorite pokemon was! It wasn't till after page 5 did they ask the basic 'What is a Pokemon?' and after that followed up by questions that he knew from reading but most of the stuff he read wasn't even on the damn test and the hardest question looked like 'If a Grass-type attacked a Fire-type and then was attacked by a Ground-type which used Earthquake, who would be the victor?' after that the questions looked so easy that if it wasn't for the official Pokemon Association seal at the bottom right he would've thought this test was a practical joke.

No wonder people didn't want to be a trainee, the test to take it was a joke in his opinion and that was what other people thought so they never bothered with it, and probably those people told others about it as well making it a waste of time to a lot of other people. However Ash stopped this train of thought, even if the test was a waste of time the benefits of being a trainee should've been more than enough incentive for people to want to be a trainee. Could it be that people were indeed this lazy!? Would he have been just like them if his mom hadn't told him about it? Assumed that it was a waste of time when someone told him it was a joke if he asked around town?

Frowning in distaste he wondered if he should really finish this test, after all it seemed like a waste of time. Shaking his head he resumed taking the test, he had already promised to himself he would complete this test and didn't he affirm in his mind that he wouldn't do anything halfway? Resuming the test Ash started to slowly answer the questions. By the time it was time for bed he had already finished 10 pages. Leaving the rest for tomorrow he went to bed let down by the so called test.

* * *

In the morning Ash woke up, rubbed the sleep out of his eye's and prepared to finish the test. The faster he finished it the faster he could escape it. Doing the remaining pages took up a few hours and he had to take a break when his mom called him for breakfast. By the time he was done though, it was only 10 o'clock in the morning, deciding to look over the other pieces of paper mailed to him, he started to go over them, but as he was reading his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Apparently not everything they had sent was a waste of time, the papers beside the test were all sorts of rules, regulations, benefits and information regarding the trainee system and if this wasn't revamped he would have to revise his opinion of it. Apparently a reason why not many people wish to become a trainee was because of what's to be expected AFTER you become a trainer. You were expected to in your first 5 years as a trainer give a major contribution to the Pokemon Association Community. It didn't matter what it just had to be a contribution that could help a lot of people. On paper that might seem easy but Ash knew that in reality that was extremely hard. That might also explain why not many people wanted to be a trainee also because it stated that if such a contribution wasn't confirmed after 5 years they started taking 20% of your income as a trainer to help finance the next generation of trainees. That could explain why no one wanted to be a trainee instead opting to say it was a waste of time to disinterest others from trying it.

Well Ash wouldn't be disillusioned about it, if he actually contributed to it, they would automatically give him B-level access on the Pokemon Association Website. With that he could have access to information on the same level a Pokemon Professor or someone who's been a trainer for at least 5 years. To Ash the most important thing to him right now was the saying "information is power", since he couldn't obtain experience from pokemon battling he had to gather as much knowledge and information as possible to give himself an edge over others.

However, just what should be contributed to help the community was the question. Sighing, he put it to the back of his mind, he could worry about that later, now that he was free for another 6 months he wanted to hurry up and map more of the forest, based on what he could remember of Pallet Town and the size of the forest, the forest was bigger than the size of Pallet Town which is weird considering Pallet Town was built pretty close to the ocean, yet when he was mapping yesterday the ocean seemed pretty far away . Could this mean that the official maps proportions are wrong? Or is it because he mapped his wrong? So many questions but only time will tell.

Sighing once more Ash got up and prepared for the day. He couldn't get lazy, this was a critical period in his life, the preparation of his future journey required him to know as much as he could while also accumulating real life experience.

* * *

After breakfast Ash headed straight back to the river and started heading upstream to see where it would lead and why random stuff seemed to continue flowing down the river. On his way up, he noted that there was quite a bit of debris blocking up the river, which would explain why the water level was lower downstream than upstream. Passing at least 5 makeshift dams he finally came across what he was looking for. Apparently, the upstream of the river was the ocean and in the distance he could see at least 2 major cities if the smoke and tall buildings were anything to go by. Looking into the water, he noted that quite a bit of random stuff was floating on top of the ocean and some of it would flow into the river. Mapping his location down, he started heading back, making a note in his head to get rid of the makeshift dams or reroute one of them towards his hovel so that he would have a river close by as well.

Heading back towards his hovel, he chose a different path to go by instead of following the edge of the river. Cutting through the forest was much harder than Ash thought. Branches and roots stuck at completely weird angles or were obscured by the foliage making navigation pretty hard. He had already tripped 4 times over roots and hit his head on a low hanging branch twice. Grumbling with frustration he made a note to bring something that would help clear the path the next time he tried an untested route through a forest. At this rate he would obtain more injuries in then last year in one go.

So he was understandably happy when he saw he was approaching his hovel due to recognizable landmarks nearby that he had memorized. When he walked into his hovel, it was like a light had clicked on in his brain. There lying on the floor were the two broken phone terminals. Slowly grinning his mind raced with the possibilities of what he had in mind. True, learning how to fix them and miniaturize them would be hard but if he was able to actually do that, then he would have contributed to the Pokemon Association community and he would've found a way to keep in contact with his mom. Now he just needed to find a way to actually understand HOW to complete such a feat. Sighing, he made a note to ask his mom to order some books on how to fix phone terminals, after all it wasn't like he would find a convenient book on fixing phone terminals lying around somewhere nearby right?

* * *

**AN: Ugh, I seem to be experiencing the famed 'writers block', running out of ideas on how I should develop the characters. x-x**

**That aside, this chapter shows a small interaction between Ash's future rivals for the Kanto region. I still haven't decided on WHEN Ash should receive his first pokemon but, I'm thinking about 1 year before he starts his journey because let's face it, give Ash 5 years with a pokemon alone and it'll be overpowered. While it's not a bad thing sometimes, someone who starts off with a overpowered right off the bat makes the story boring don't you think?**

**If you would be so kind as to leave ideas for me to munch on, please do. Bai-Baiz.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon.**

* * *

Apparently you COULD find books on phones lying around, just not the type to explain how to fix them, rather it explained how they worked. While not exactly what he was looking for, it was still a god send since he would need to know how a phone worked to replicate it no?

Still he would have to find a way to get what he needed, or else his plans would be stuck at a standstill. However that didn't really mean anything considering his aspirations. Just because one idea was on hold didn't mean others were. Oh sure he couldn't really get a Pokemon to call his own just yet, but he sure as hell could find out just what type of starters he's allowed to get and from their find out which starter he would want in the future. He was pretty sure he could also go out into the wild and study the daily livelihood of the Pokemon surrounding Pallet Town and from there learn the fight or flight response of how Pokemon act.

But for now he merely contented himself with expanding his secret base. After reading an architecture book that he found in his stash, he felt intrigued but also horrified. The reason being that it explained how buildings were normally built and the flaws of how amateur creations were prone to accidents and his 'secret base' qualified. With just enough force applied to the wall it would send the thing crashing down on itself. Being the kid that he was, he decided to bring it down himself and rebuild it from scratch. The new 'secret base' was much more cozy compared to his old one and more clean and tidy. Who knew geometry in a building affected how it felt? He sure didn't think so until now. Though he kind of lamented that his old 'secret base' didn't have any fond memories of it besides being his first 'achievement' as a child. As it was now, his 'secret base' was quite a bit better than his old one, spanning 30 feet long, 10 feet wide and 10 meters high it felt like one extremely large room. Rebuilding it took over a week because he had to shave off parts of the wood as specified by the book and getting the roof to stick together took quite awhile for all the glue to dry, then he had to somehow get it to act as a roof which required him to glue them together as smaller pieces AFTER he had secured them to the roof. The was a sliding door but at least it provided him with a modicum of privacy, though the windows had to get covered with plastic since he couldn't really find a big enough piece of glass, nor did he trust himself with it.

The insides were much more organized, on one side he had 2 bookcases full of books and stuff that he had found during his weekly scavenger hunts and an old wooden table that he had brought back and repaired and right next to it, pasted on the wall was the map he had drawn, though it looked like a disfigured puzzle with how random the pages stuck out. On the other side was his 'work space' containing all sorts of tools he had scavenged and the 2 broken phone terminals along every other broken electronic he could get his hands on. Overall it was exactly the sort of secret base he had always seen in those movies as a kid. A sanctuary where no one could bother him and a place where he didn't have to worry about the rules of others.

Though he sort of wished he could show it to his new friends Red and Green. Even though they would be his future rivals they were pretty nice to talk to and play with. he smiled at the memory of their meeting.

* * *

_I was at the Pallet Town library, and while it was small it was nothing to sneeze at either considering most of the books here came from Professor Oaks lab when he no longer had a use for them and I was here because I was curious about Professor Oaks theory that got him his Researcher License and luckily I found a book that had his theory and sat down to read it._

_"Hey, I'm talking to you" a voice said while I was reading._

_I looked up, who would be talking to me of all people? I felt surprised to see that girl -Leaf my mind supplied- talking to me with Red looking at me from behind her._

_Hesitantly I said, "Yes?"_

_Leaf was all smiles when I replied and asked, "Whatcha reading?"_

_Staring at her I wondered if I should tell her, after all she was a possible rival along with that Red person behind her. Sighing discreetly as to not tip her off I said, "it's a book on the theories that researchers have come up with regarding Pokemon"_

_At this she raised and eyebrow and asked, "Is it interesting?"_

_I didn't really know how to respond. Who would ask someone if the book was interesting after hearing a title that sounded boring? But I answered never the less. " It's interesting depending on how you look at it, after all Prof. Oaks theory regarding Pokemon is that the more they bond to their trainers, the more stronger they get as time goes on, while in Prof. Limelight case they become stronger based on how hard you push them to their limits and-"_

_I got cut off mid- sentence when a hand appeared inches from my face. Taken aback I stopped talking and looked at the owner who was Leaf. Looking at her questionably she answered, " Yea I see, you find it interesting but that really wasn't what I meant when I asked"  
_

_"Eh?" I let out._

_Leaf just shuffled uncomfortably and said, "Well you see, we remember seeing you in the crowd when Gary -here she paused to make a grimace- decided to yell at Red for having a Pokemon, since we didn't really interact with Gary a lot we didn't really know what to think of him, so I thought I'd ask you since you looked like you knew him."_

_I was speechless, apparently they weren't interested in talking to me per say, but rather what I knew of Gary. I should feel offended that they weren't interested in me after all I would be one of their future rivals, but I immediately squashed that thought, it sounded arrogant just like Gary._

_They must've mistook my silence as me thinking because Leaf just said, "Well?" after a while._

_Furrowing my brow I thought of what to tell them. Deciding to give Gary the benefit of the doubt I slowly answered, "Normally Gary isn't that bad, well he wasn't as bad as now back then but ever since his grandpa registered him as a Pokemon Trainer, he's been, how to say it, pushing it in everyone's faces. So no, Gary normally isn't like that but give it time, eventually it will get old and it will stop being as bad."_

_Hearing my answer Leaf sighed in relief for some reason while Red still hadn't said a thing. they must've caught me looking at them curiously because Leaf immediately blushed and said, "Sorry I forgot to introduce ourselves didn't we?". I nodded and Leaf blushed even more if that was possible._

_Then she said, " My name is Leaf, future Pokemon trainer and this" pointing at Red "Is Red, future Pokemon league Champion, sorry about not introducing ourselves earlier."_

_I said, "It's okay, I'm Ash future Pokemon Master/Researcher, Nice to meet you"_

_At this both Leaf and Red raised an eyebrow. It was Leaf who answered, "Nice to meet you too, but Pokemon Master and Researcher? Isn't that impossible?"_

_Immediately__ I entered what I call 'Lecture Mode', " No it is very much possible, a Pokemon Master one merely needs to have lots of different types of Pokemon while a Researcher is just the study of Pokemon. In a way all trainers are Researchers because they try to find the best way to raise their Pokemon. Although that could be qualified as Pokemon Breeding or Care." I lectured._

_Again both Leaf and Red blinked. Leaf answered for both. " Uh, wow I didn't know that, you seem pretty smart about this kind of stuff"_

_Here I said, " Of course, I've thought about what I wanted for a while now and while it might change I will always want to be a Pokemon Master/Researcher because my mom's aiming for a Researcher right now as well."_

_Leaf just smiled and said, " Well it's nice that you know what you want in the future, I kind of envy you, I just said Pokemon trainer for myself because that's what everyone else wanted so I thought I'd say the same, now I'm not so sure if that's what I want."_

_I raised an eyebrow at this and asked, " What about Red, is he also unsure about what he wants because you answered for him?"_

_Here Leaf just laughed and said, " This guy? No way, he's dead set on becoming Pokemon League Champion since he could talk. Mind you he can talk even if he's not right now, he's just very shy."_

_Here Red said, "Leaf...mean.."_

_Smiling at him I said, " I guess that makes us rivals in the future no?"_

_Red was the one to answer this time. " Yes,.. rivals... meet at... Indigo.. Plateau?"_

_Grinning I said, " Yea, I'll meet you at the top when the time comes."_

_Leaf cut in and said, "Hey, hey don't forget about me, while I'm not sure what I want, I won't get left behind either"_

_That was how I met 2 of my future rivals._

* * *

Shaking his head, Ash cleared away the thoughts for now and concentrated on reading about how a computer's assembled. He was still curious about just where all these books kept coming from, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. For now though he would milk it for all its worth, and having his own computer seemed like a good direction to go in. While he and his mom weren't poor, they weren't rich either, so anything that he could get on his own would be worth it in the long run, because it meant one less thing to worry about and the potential benefits far outweighed the potential downsides and having a computer was a big potential benefit that far outweighed its downsides. It would give him access to the internet which would allow him to search for information easier and he would get a wider variety of stuff to search for and understand. Though he would first have to learn how to assemble it from parts and then he would have to bring the parts back home and assemble it back there because he was not going to find a way to transport a computer from his secret base to his home. That would end up revealing where his secret base was and making it not so secret anymore and it would look silly, a seven and a half-year old boy dragging a computer home? That would go over well.

Looking at a newly repaired clock that was leaning against the wall, Ash noticed that it was getting late. Marking the last page he was at, he put it back on the bookcase and stretched his back out, sitting on such a rickety chair sure hurt his back. Walking home he thought of how often his mom immersed herself in reviewing and researching that nowadays to the point of forgetting to eat. He had lost track of the amount of times he had gotten home to see his mom so immersed that she forgot about dinner. He knew he shouldn't chide her, after all she was pursuing the dream that she gave up on when he was born and he supported her whole heartily but she should remember to keep her health in check.

Getting back home he felt relieved to see that his mom was making dinner, while he wasn't lazy nor a bad cook he missed his mom's cooking now that she didn't make it as much instead opting to continue her reviewing of the stuff she forgot. Smelling the sweet fragrance coming form the kitchen, Ash subconsciously drooled and headed towards the smell. There on the table was his mom's famed super-spicy curry that he loved and there his mom was already eating her portion while reading something. He laughed internally at the irony, she was the one who told him it was rude to read while eating dinner, yet here she was doing exactly what she taught him NOT to do.

Sitting down in front of his portion, he got to eating it with gusto manners forgotten. Internally weeping in joy at the spicy taste in his mouth he watched his mom continue reading her book while eating. Sometimes he wondered if he was too mature for his age when he found his mother attractive in his eye's. Shaking his head of such thoughts he quickly finished his curry before his mother finished hers. Putting his plate in the sink, he headed upstairs to his room to change and shower and plan out more of what he needed to prepare for in the future.

* * *

Getting out of the shower, Ash went to check on the kitchen to make sure his mom had cleaned the dishes. Seeing that they, he turned to head to his room passing his mom's room which was dark which signified she mom was sleeping now. Entering his room he felt surprised to see that he was inside the shower longer then he liked. It was almost time for bed, so forgoing his plans he settled for re-reading the information provided by the Pokemon Association regarding the Trainee system before turning in for the night.

During that night Ash once more experienced the dream that was becoming a recurring cycle. This time though the message was much more clear, "_Please...find...me... I'm... lonely...anyone?..._". Though the message had changed, the 'voice' was still the same. So when Ash woke up that morning he didn't know what to make of it. On one hand he was curious about why there was a psychic-type near Pallet which was relatively peaceful and the only psychics it had were the occasional HootHoot and Noctowl from the Johto region. Getting up, he made a note to find out more before he tried anything. If there was anything he learned from exploring and searching in the forest, forward planning was a must if he didn't want to get bruised or scratched and a plethora of other injuries that came with impulsive actions. Moving that to the back of his mind Ash got up to start his day. If anything, he might be lucky and by some sick twist of fate stumble across the voice in his head eventually. Wow he thought. That sounded so wrong, a voice in his head? Just where did his childhood go he wondered.

Getting into the kitchen, he sighed when no one was there. Looks like it was his turn to make breakfast and he seemed to have forgotten. Moving towards the refrigerator, he grabbed some eggs and a pack of sausages and got to work on them. By the time it was 8 o' clock breakfast was ready and he went to go check on his mom. Quietly knocking on her bedroom door he asked, "Mom you awake?". Hearing a mumbled "come in" he went back to the kitchen to retrieve the breakfast to bring to his mom. He mused that this was becoming increasingly common nowadays. Hopefully when he started his journey she wouldn't be so forgetful as to forget about her health. Otherwise he would probably end up staying in one city forever, always checking up on his mother to make sure she was looking after herself.

Placing the breakfast on her bedside table, I quietly told her that I would be out for the day. She just mumbled "be back before it gets dark". Nodding at this I prepared for another day of spending my time in my secret base reading or plotting new ideas.

* * *

The thing about reading books that had a lot of technical words was that you were prone to not understanding what it means. What was an Echo Box? Why was it required in a computer terminal? What purpose did it serve? There were so many questions attached to each technical term that it sometimes drove Ash insane. Inwardly weeping at the fact that kids his age normally didn't have to worry about stuff like this, he sometimes wondered if he really should've promised to become the best. The expectations he put on himself were so heavy sometimes that he wished he could just not care for once. But if there was one thing about himself that he would always keep the same, it would be that he ALWAYS kept his promises no matter what. He may forget but eventually he would remember, he may wish to ignore it but he would do it anyway because it would gnaw at him like a bug and if he wished for release than keeping it was the easiest way to go.

Sighing he put down the book about how computers got assembled and relaxed in the rickety chair. Feeling his back against the wood he thought '_I really need to find a better chair, this things a killer on my back_'. Inwardly wincing at the fact that he sounded a bit like Prof. Oak every time he cracked his back whenever he got up. He wasn't old dammit, he was young, just a lot more mature than most.

Getting up he walked out his secret base, he really had to find a name for this place, calling it secret base was getting annoying. Breathing in a deep breath of air he exhaled and was happy to feel his stress from reading fly away. At least until he thought of what he would have to occupy his mind with that didn't kill his brain cells en masse with big words.

Feeling like now would be a good time to further explore the other side of the river, he went back into his base and grabbed some paper and writing utensils. Hopefully he would discover something new. He had mapped out the entire side of his river, now the only uncharted area was the other side. Though he was curious about one thing. Why was the forest so damn big, he didn't think a forest this big existed near Pallet unless he accidentally walked onto Route 1 and was pretty close to Viridian City, but that wasn't possible, he didn't see any roads of buildings that signified he was anywhere close to it.

Arriving at the river, he headed downstream, since there wasn't a bridge he'd have to walk down to the river base and cross from there where the depth wasn't so deep nor wide. When Ash got to the other side, he noted that this side had a more rampart growth of greenery. Warily advancing forward, he made sure to keep an eye out for the path he was taking while occasionally jotting down landmarks to look out for. He also seemed to notice that the Pokemon here were much more open compared to the other side of the river. They didn't seem to even care about his presence when normally Pokemon would all go into hiding when he approached. Though now that he thought about it, some of the Pokemon on the other side had stopped hiding when he walked by. It was like they knew he wasn't going to bother them or he was doing something subconsciously. Shrugging off such thoughts for now he resumed keeping his eye on the path he was taking. Ash felt very confused, even if the Pokemon were more open and this place had more greenery, shouldn't there be at least SOME trash scattered around? They lived right next to a river that deposited nearly anything and everything for crying out loud, yet here there wasn't any trace of the stuff from the river seen at all.

Walking deeper, Ash idly noticed that the trees had started towering above him blocking off the sun and bathing the area in semi darkness, though he could see fine it was still annoying. Continuing on he noticed that he seemed to finally be seeing the stuff from the river. It seemed that the Pokemon on this side of the forest was much more organized. They seemed to have decided to dump everything in a clearing that had a gap in the trees above to provide a sufficient amount of light to bathe to clearing. Staring at the 'tower' he would've been impressed at the architecture of this 'wonder' if he wasn't so worried about it toppling over and possibly crushing him. Carefully walking around it, he caught a glimpse of a treetop that spanned even higher than the trees of the surrounding clearing. Marking from which side of the clearing he came from he headed off towards that large tree, for some reason he had an inexplicable feeling urging him to go there.

Hoping his budding instinct didn't betray him as he approached the base of the tree that he could see even with the other trees blocking off a part of his view, he wondered just what awaited him at his destination.

What he found shocked him, there nestled at the roots of the tree was an egg, a pink egg no less. If what he remembered was right, then it either contained a Pokemon that was pink in body tone or was a psychic type. And behold, he was having dreams of a psychic type calling out for him. Coincidence? Most definitely not. Something was going on here, but he couldn't leave the egg here, his knowledge of Pokemon egg's were limited but even he knew that an egg that wasn't properly cared for would eventually collapse on itself and the Pokemon inside it would die. That was why Pokemon breeding required such patience and care, one careless mistake and a life was about to get snuffed out. So carefully extracting the egg from the roots of the tree he was relieved to feel that while the egg felt colder than of what'd he expected, it could easily be remedied after a night of being warmed up.

Retrieving the papers and writing utensils he had dropped when he extracted the egg, he rushed towards his base, being mindful of his feet, it wouldn't do to try to save an egg only to fail because he didn't watch where he was running. Arriving at the river he quickly headed downstream while mentally making a note to find out how to make a damn bridge, it would be very handy right about now. Getting to the other side of river took about 15 minutes of running, but by then Ash was feeling tired. He knew kids his age generally had a lot of energy to run, but even a kid whose run for 15 minutes straight would feel tired. Slowing down his pace to a slow walk, Ash tried to regain his breath. Looking at the egg he was happy to feel some warmth return to it from the heat he generated while running with it cradled in his arms.

Arriving at his base he quickly deposited his papers and writing utensils on the table and jogged back home, hoping he wouldn't run into anyone, it would be hard to explain where he found a Pokemon Egg of all things and that would end up making him reveal his secret base which would kill the 'secret' aspect of it. Walking into the house he called out, " Mom, I need help! I found an Egg while exploring the forest!".

Delia who wasn't studying her notes was shocked to see her boy bring in an egg of all things, but when he cried for help she knew something must've been wrong with it. Quickly getting up she took the egg from her boy and started checking up on it to make sure there were no anomalies in it with her recently reviewed knowledge.

After 10 minutes of checking, she calmed down and told her boy, " It's perfectly fine. Aside from being colder than normal, it's perfectly healthy. All it needs right now is a warmth."

Nodding at this he hurried upstairs to grab the Incubator he had found those few months ago. Reaching the living room, he opened the lid of the Incubator and his mom put a cushion into it before placing the egg on top of it. Then she closed the lid and placed the egg at the window letting the sun shine into it and warming up the egg. Crisis averted Ash calmed himself down and stared at the egg. Inside this small thing was a Pokemon waiting to be born, how he wanted to observe and study the process! Life being born from the form of an egg! But for now he felt tired so he quietly drifted off on the sofa.

* * *

_Ash was dreaming again. He had gotten used to the feeling of falling asleep and finding himself seemingly floating in a colorful rainbow of sorts. When he first found out he panicked and didn't bother listening to the sound. Now though he had gotten used to it and seemingly welcomed it. Floating in a rainbow world seemed like a good place to relax._

_Though this time he felt like he wasn't alone. For some reason he could feel something very close to him radiating warmth._

_'Looking' in the direction of the warmth he saw a blob of pink floating to his left. the 'blob' seemed to be moving all over the place since it didn't seem to want to stay in one shape. Looking at it, Ash was curious as to what it was. At least until he heard a voice seemingly coming from it._

_"Thank you... for..finding me..." before it blinked out of existence._

_With that Ash woke up._

* * *

Jumping up from where he fell asleep, Ash was surprised to see that it was dark outside already. He must've slept for longer then he thought. Looking at the Incubator that was still in front of the window he saw the pink egg. It looked healthier then the last time he saw it, but he wasn't sure since he wasn't an expert on the biology of Pokemon Eggs. Though he did wonder if that voice in his dream was the Pokemon inside the egg. Shrugging it off for now, he headed towards the kitchen where he could smell dinner being made.

Walking into the kitchen he saw his mom making dinner and this time it was hamburgers along with a side dish of fries. Salivating at the thought of the food he hurriedly set up the table. When it was done he ate with gusto but kept himself well-mannered, those lessons ingrained into him coming in handy.

Finishing up and putting the dish in the sink, Ash got up and stretched himself before thanking his mom for the meal and heading towards the Incubator. Grabbing it, he brought it upstairs to his room and put it on his table where he sat down and started jotting ideas as to what it could be.

Based on the color, he could already come up with quite a few possibilities. Ranging from Happinys, Snubbulls, Clefas, Igglybuffs,Slowpokes or even Exeggcutes. For now he contented himself with merely staring at it and hoping it hatched soon, while he wasn't allowed a Pokemon just yet, it could be registered as his mom's and he would have a new playmate.

Yawning Ash decided to call it a day and headed off to bed, he could worry about what kind of Pokemon it was when it hatched. No point in setting himself up for disappointment. Getting up to close the light he felt an inexplicable feeling to sleep with the egg in his grasp. Moving to the Incubator, he took the egg out and hugged it to himself. Getting into bed and covering himself and the egg, Ash drifted off into a dreamless sleep while the egg seemed to warm up against Ash.

* * *

The next morning Ash was feeling fresh. But first he had put the egg away from his spot next to him. Carefully putting it back in the Incubator, he closed the lid and angled it so that it was right next to his window where it could catch the rays of the sun. He totally felt like going back to that trash mountain from didn't really get a good look at it nor did he see if there was anything that could be of use to him. So he was curious if there was. Plan set for the day Ash set out.

Getting there took longer then he remembered, but maybe it was because he was exploring something new, so he subconsciously sped up. When he got there he was once more awed by the sight. A tower of trash that was nearly as tall as some of the trees surrounding it. Cautiously approaching it, he saw so much stuff that could be salvaged, repaired and then reused. Heck, if he wasn't seeing things there was even a computer terminal in there, how did they get that here? It would take at least a team of Pokemon to even carry something like that from the river. Also if his eye's weren't deceiving him, there were some Pokedex's in there as well. How the hell did that get here? Did the trainers lose them or something?

Shaking his head, he slowly started carefully extracting the stuff that he could use to slowly carry to his base, but then he remembered that he would have to carry it downstream. Giving off a long-suffering sigh Ash re-arranged his priorities. He first had to build a bridge that would allow him to cross the river and then he would have to make a straight path from here to his base. No way was he dragging back this stuff through the woods where you were liable to trip and hurt yourself badly if you weren't looking.

Grabbing the stuff that was portable and wouldn't slow him down, he started that long stretch back to his base thinking "_I really need to make a damn bridge for that river_". After depositing the stuff in his base he grabbed his book on architecture, toolbox and a metric tape. Hopefully the river would supply him with timber that wasn't rotted.

* * *

A day later and he was still in the planning phases of his idea. He couldn't make a bridge longer enough that would get to the other side without dipping into the river and being washed away. Nor could he a way to put supports in the river without those getting washed away either. Looking across from where he was, he saw a tree that was relatively close to the edge of the river. Suddenly a new idea popped up. Why bother going for a firmly crafted bridge when a tree served just as well? grabbing the saw -that was a serious breach of child safety- he got to work on sawing off one side of the tree and hoping it would fall and reach the other side of the river. Though he would have to remember to flatten it so that he could safely walk across it and drag stuff back. Thought as it was right now, he would have to get another tree to fall and from there find a way to push them against each other to form a make-shift bridge.

In theory it should be simple, but in reality it wasn't. For one a kid like him couldn't push a tree that was at least 5 times as heavy as himself. Nor could drag his stuff across a narrow tree. Narrowing his eyes in frustration, he had another spark. What if he got the trees as close together as possible and then just placed wooden boards across them? It would serve as a good bridge. Wait. No it would have to be secured in order for it to prevent accidents of it giving out to stretch.

As he planned out new ideas of how to create a bridge, he never noticed the Pokemon of the forest looking at Ash curiously. This was the first time the human boy who always visited destroyed a tree of the forest after all, so they wondered why he did it. When they saw him pacing in front of the downed tree they thought he wanted to get across. However when he didn't they got confused and settled for watching him pace back and forth while muttering to himself.

When they saw him cut down another tree, they felt more confused, why was the boy cutting down their trees? When they saw him try to push the tree towards the other tree only to fail, they had a look of understanding on their face. It seemed like the human boy wanted to make trees stick next to each other for reason. When they saw him leave, the Pokemon all came out, ranging from Sentrets, Furrets, to Rattatas and Pidgeys. They had seen the boy always visiting their forest and every time he came, he seemed to exude a calming aura around him. As the Pokemon came out of the woodwork they chattered among themselves and then all of a sudden they wall started pushing the tree closer to the other tree. When they were done moving it they chattered again before they all dispersed.

* * *

When Ash came back from finding a supply of wooden planks, he was surprised to see that one of the trees he had cut down had somehow been pushed up against the other tree. Looking around to see if there was any indication of who did such a thing, he was disappointed to see that no one seemed to be nearby and there weren't any footprints to show anyone was even there.

Wondering if the forest was haunted, he dropped his supply of wood and started shaving off the top layer of the trees to make sure it was flat. It wouldn't do to try to drag _anything_ across a rounded surface which was liable to cause things to slip off. As he was shaving off the top layer, he bundled up the long boards of wood and stabbed them into the river to act as to stabilize the trees and prevent them from rolling off. As he got to the other side he repeated the process, making sure that the spike was strong enough to support the movement of the tree.

Satisfied with his work, Ash moved back to Trash Mountain as he dubbed it in his head. He got to work pulling the computer terminal back to his base. He was lucky he was already reading up on how to repair computers and now he just needed to find a power source to test if it was fixed _when_ he finished learning how to fix it. But first he had to read up on power safety, while he wasn't the brightest tool, even he knew handling electrical surges without precautions was asking for danger and maybe retardation from all the surges.

Feeling immensely accomplished he couldn't wait for when he fixed the computer terminal. Then Hello information and good-bye long waits. Though he also remembered the egg and he would have to make sure that he searched up all relevant information regarding pink eggs when he fixed the computer _if_ the egg didn't hatch by the time he fixed it.

* * *

**AN: Shorter than I would like, but it was the best I could do with what I just found out regarding my school life. Seem's like hurricane Sandy's finally barring its leftover fangs at me in the form of extra school days.**

**As for this chapter, sorry if its worse then the others. I didn't really put any heart into after the first 3000 words or so.**

**Regarding some of the reviews, the reason Red's in this story is because I found the amount of rivals in the anime lacking. It seem's like Ash is always destined to have ONLY 2 rivals per season. He would also always lose to one of the rivals he just met at the Conference. Also I'm thinking of making Red Ash's final challenge where he becomes an idiot and scales Mt. Silver to challenge Red who was up their training after he lost his Pokemon League Champion title.**

**Also of course Ash probably can't take on Gary and Red, If he could beat them in his 1st year as a trainer then there kinda wouldn't be any point in continuing the story, unless Ash is gonna go 'Gotta catch em all'. Also I think some people got confused with Pokemon League Champion and Indigo Plateau Champion. Both are separate titles, so if Red were to win the Plateau it wouldn't mean he's the champion yet. As of right now, Lance is still champ.**

**To that guest who asked for Red as MC, sadly I can't comply because I'm already having a hard time writing up Red as he is and sorry if these kids use words that should be beyond their understanding. I can't really capture the mindset of 7 year olds.**

**Well suggestions, critiques are much appreciated but if you're going to flat-out insult me, please refrain from doing so.**


	5. Chapter 5

It had been 3 months since Ash had started his repairs on the busted computer terminal. While the process was slow going he was confident that he would finish fixing it soon.

Meanwhile the egg that he had found had to be close to hatching. Ash swore that he had seen it wriggle once inside the PEI but his mom wasn't so sure. He was dying of curiosity to know what was inside it.

Another thing that finally happened was that Prof. Oak had returned from his summit meeting with his fellow professors from different regions. Ash had to beg Prof. Oak to let him use his library since he had exhausted the supply of books his mom had lent him and the books he had found. Now he was looking for anything that could sate his curiosity for learning more about Pokemon. While he could've gone to the library, the books their only had generalized information that he already knew and he wanted to specifics now that he knew the generalized stuff.

So when Oak had agreed to let Ash use his library on the condition that he would make sure everything stayed in tip-top condition, Ash nearly bowled Oak over as he hugged him.

There was also the fact that his mother was nearly done going over all the stuff that she had stored in that deceptively small closet in her room. So his mother had finally started acting normal again and started taking care of herself better. Ash was still worried she would regress into that person who would be so absorbed into reading that she forgot to take care of herself. However he was sure that him always reminding her about it had probably engraved it into her mind. Now she had told him that she would soon start her work on a thesis that would get contribute to the advancement of Pokemon understanding and hopefully get her the title of Professor.

Now that he thought about it, Professor Ketchum had a nice ring in it to Ash's ears.

It was also depressing for for him last month when Gary and Red both declared each other as rivals so to speak when they became of age to travel by themselves. Leaf had told him how the adults who witnessed the scene were touched by how they were such good friends. However when Ash saw them, he wondered if the adults were crazy or not because no matter how he looked at it, he saw Gary glaring at Red while Red himself was just looking off in a different direction.

Though he did hear someone near the back say something like, "Ohh! it'll evolve into a hardcore bromance one day! Just look at them! Gary's staring at red so hard and Red is just playing hard to get!"

Of course that was followed by lots of people suddenly leaving the duo to their.. bromance..?

Leaf decided to stay behind to act as a mediator but he just wished her good luck and left himself.

...

Now Ash had found himself in Oak's library going over some books on Pokemon psychology and he was surprised by what he found. Apparently Pokemon personalities sometimes clashed with a trainers personality leading to disobedience. While disobedience was something he knew of, it was something that wasn't properly explained either.

It's said that a Pokemon nature determines their personality and vice versa. An example would be a Pokemon with Adamant nature would be more headstrong about fighting it's battles while a Pokemon with Calm nature would prefer to drag out the battle to find a weakness. That explained why he saw some of the battles he had seen on TV end so quick, or drag on for so long. It was because the trainers were letting their own Pokemon fight their own battles while they only gave commands when absolutely necessary.

It also provided an explanation to why he always saw the challengers lose against the Elite Four whenever they aired a battle. He saw a lot of the challengers continue ordering their Pokemon during the battle, while the Elite Four themselves only seemed to give commands when their Pokemon needed to defend themselves. He theorized that because the challengers Pokemon had to continue listening to their trainers command while going against their nature, it caused the attention span of the Pokemon to be split in multiple ways, creating a weak spot for the opposing Pokemon to take advantage of.

Placing down the book for a second, Ash jotted down on a piece of paper next to him, _"Note: Make sure find out natures of Pokemon and find a fighting style that suits it so that commands given will not go against their nature."_

While he wasn't sure whether his theory had any merit at all, he was sure it would be handy to know later down the road.

This was basically how Ash spent most of his days. Cooped up in Professor Oak's laboratory when he wanted to read up on stuff that involved Pokemon, In his room staring at the egg, or at his hideaway trying to figure out what he was doing wrong to the terminal or exploring the forest looking for things that caught his eye.

He rarely interacted with the kids his age who seemed content to play around acting like they were trainers. Call himself arrogant but he had no delusions of lowering himself down to their level when they finally started their Pokemon journeys. He would use every advantage he had to crush them, maybe then they would reflect on how different reality really was. To a child that was as young as Ash, such thoughts might seem rather dark, however Ash thought it was completely justified, Gary himself was the perfect example of this. He spent all his time chasing after Red, but at least Ash knew that wasn't all Gary did, he was after all Professor Oak's grandson and no matter how much he hated the title, he was bound to pick up stuff from being his grandson.

While Red, as far as Ash knew was someone who was quiet all the time. However Ash felt that Red would be the hardest obstacle to beat in his journey. He didn't know why he was thinking that way, but he just _knew_ Red would be the one of the hardest trainers he would fight in the future. It was like something at the back of his head telling him, "_He will be the final obstacle between your dream at the end of your journey"_.

Ash didn't know what to think about Leaf, while she said she wanted to be a Pokemon trainer, she didn't say it with much conviction. She had even admitted she said it because everyone else said it too. Did that mean that she wasn't sure what she wanted to be in the future? Or was it perhaps because she had another goal in mind?

Ash shook his head in attempt to get rid of such thoughts. He was already thinking too deep, their was no way Leaf could have a secondary objective to being a trainer, he was just over thinking things. Yes that was it, over thinking.

Looking at the clock, he noticed that it was getting late. Putting back the book back onto its shelf, he yelled out, "Bye Professor Oak!" before running out the door. Making sure it was locked on the way out.

Reaching his home, he started drooling the moment he entered the front door, his mom was making something heavenly, he could smell it.

...

Another 3 months passed in the blink of an eye and Ash felt jittery once again. Today would be the day he would be heading to Viridian City to take the Pokemon Trainee exam and he was feeling extremely nervous about it. Just last month, it was announced that the revision of the Pokemon Trainer charter was out. Along with it, the Trainee charter was released as well. Now instead of taking the exam at home, you went to the nearest league operated test facility and took the test there.

After you finished you would automatically receive your answer to whether you passed or not. If he passed, he would be certified as a Trainee and would be allowed to keep 3 Pokemon on him at anytime until his guardian deemed him fit to own a full team of 6, in which case he would be registered as a Pokemon Trainer instead of a Pokemon Trainee. he would also be given an access code to the Official League Website that contained information about trainers worldwide and information that Trainers posted on it to help newbies. While his access was restricted to a low level, it was still access to information that would help him.

Of course, he was allowed to catch more then 3 Pokemon, but they would automatically be transferred to the nearest storage until he was an official Trainer, so he had to be careful with what he caught as his first three Pokemon.

This year, the gift for passing the Trainee exam was a League-themed Messenger Bag tailor-made for Trainers going on journeys. They were durable, contained a list of all the essentials a trainer would need and could fit even more. This incentive was more then enough for Ash to do well in the exam.

Now though, Ash was feeling extremely nervous. Recently the egg that he had found had started wriggling more. This was a sure sign that it was hatching and today it wriggled the most he had ever seen it wriggle. This had Ash very nervous. The egg could hatch at anytime and today or all days he had an exam that would leave him away from home for at least half a day. Pacing in his room like any mentally-stressed person would do, Ash was contemplating whether he should go with staying home and caring for the egg or going to Viridian City and finishing the exam as fast as he could and rush back home?

The test-facility had specifically stated that nothing was allowed to be brought in. Anything that a test taker would need to take the test was provided for and he was pretty sure bringing in an Egg would not be the best idea.

Glancing at the egg one more time, he hoped that it didn't hatch today while he was away.

Maybe it was a trick of the light or the state of his mind but he swore the egg seemed to glow for a second. Blinking his eye's he rubbed them and saw nothing had changed.

Hearing his mother calling for him from downstairs he glanced one more time to the egg and ran out of his room and headed towards his mom. They would be walking there and it would take at least 2 hours. When Ash had asked, "What about the wild Pokemon?" his mother had just giggled and said, "They won't bother us so long as we don't bother them."

Blushing at not thinking of such a simple answer, Ash turned away and started walking. Only for his mom to call out and say, "It's the other way Ashie."

Quickly turning and walking in the right direction, Ash walked ahead of his mother with a face that could rival the color of a tomato while his mother just giggled along.

...

Entering Viridian City for the first time Ash was shocked by how busy the city looked. Compared to Pallet Town, this place had to be at least 5 times larger. People milled about doing whatever they did and he even caught glimpses of Pokemon when he passed by some alleys with his mother.

Soon enough, they found themselves closing in on a Pokemon Center. Looking at it in curiosity, Ash wondered why they were here. His answer was provided as soon as they turned entered. Inside was a bustling network of activity. He saw lots of people moving around inside and he saw that there were lots of kids his age as well. Though they all seemed to be reading from what he could see.

Looking towards his mom for an explanation. He heard her explain how all the kids here were people aspiring to be Trainees like he was so in a sense, they were all his rivals.

Hearing the explanation, Ash looked back towards all the people his age and thought, _"All these people are here could be my rivals..."_. Internally smirking Ash looked forward to just how many of these people would actually make a name for themselves when they became a trainer.

30 minutes later and the clock struck 12. That was when a door to the right slammed open causing heads to turn towards the noise. There standing in the doorway was a man that was 6 feet tall, wearing a blue uniform with an emblemized P on the right side of it.

Clearing his throat he shouted, "All test takers get over here. We'll get you seated in 10 minutes and then you can start! Those who finish will automatically get their grade as soon as their done! The passing grade is a minimum is a C! For those who fail, too bad. Get out and try again next year. For those who pass, Congratulations and get out anyway. Now don't think for a second that you're the only ones taking this test! There are millions of others who are taking the same test in other facilities! So don't think that you're anything special if you think these are the only people aspiring for the rank of Trainee! Now move it!"

Immediately afterwards a lot of noise was generated as people walked towards the open doors. Some walking confidently, some walking like they were about to fall over. Some received encouragement from their parents, while some lost their nerve from the intimidating way the person spoke. Ash himself received a word of encouragement from his mother before he too walked towards the open doors.

Once inside he found himself in an auditorium. Ash guessed that its to be expected from a Pokemon Center, such things were needed when meetings between trainers happened and they would need a large room for conversation. However, it seemed that the League had brought a ton of computer terminals and set them up inside the auditorium. Every 3 seats or so there was a computer terminal he guessed that they would be taking the test on that.

Sure enough he heard another person wearing the same shirt as the other exam proctor inside yelling to sit in front of a terminal and to stay quiet.

10 minutes later everyone was seated while those who weren't lucky to get a seat were ushered out and told that they would have to wait for the next session. This confused Ash since he didn't know there was a next session.

The guy that had originally called for the aspiring trainees to enter stood at the front of the auditorium and seemed to glare at everyone. Sweeping the room with his gaze one more time he cleared his throat and shouted. "Good! Now that everyone is seated I'll be explaining how this is going to be done. Because the League has decided to change how go, instead of the old send a test home and wait for it come back approach, the League has decided to test you right here right now. This is mostly because despite there being trainees who became trainers, they still ended up as **casualties **during their journeys. So the League has revised it so that only those who know what they're doing will be given the rank trainee." Here he paused before continuing "Now, I know some of you have always wondered why there is a trainee system when its just a degraded version of a trainer. The answer is simple, its to prepare future trainers for there possible futures. Some of you no doubt aspire to be trainers while others might want to be researchers or even rangers, this system was created as a means for people to learn as much as they can about their possible futures. For those trainers who think being trainers is a game, they're wrong, to be a trainer is to reach an understanding between Pokemon and keep the peace between the people and Pokemon. For those who didn't understand a word I said, then too bad, obviously you aren't taking this seriously For those who did understand, be prepared for the responsibilities your actions will bring. Now may the test begin!"

Immediately after saying that, the terminal in front of Ash lit up from its dormant state and asked for the name of the test taker. Ash inputted his name, but his mind was going over different things. Namely the speech the proctor just gave. On one level Ash understood what that man had been trying to say. He saw everyone here as people who aspired to be serious trainers, but he also saw some people here that was only doing this for fun. He basically called out those who were doing this for fun would be the first to fail as soon as they became trainers. While the speech was good in his opinion. He didn't see why it had to be said right before the test. Was he testing their resolve by trying to shake their confidence? Or was it simply something he always did? Shaking his head Ash concentrated on his test.

The beginning was simple enough. It merely asked questions like, what was a Pokemon?, Name all the different types of Pokemon, name a famous Professor, etc. However as the test went on, the question increased with difficulty. Some asking, What kind of specific care was required for a certain type of Pokemon, How to properly care for a Unhatched Egg, What signs to look for when a Pokemon was sick,etc.

If Ash hadn't read so many different books less then half a year ago, he was sure that he wouldn't have been able to answer most of these questions except maybe the beginning part.

One hour and a half later, Ash was finished with the test. At the end there was a survey that was optional. Deciding to answer it. he saw it was a near exact replica of the previous test. It basically asked what his dreams were and why he had them as dreams. Looking at it, just typed, "I want to be the best" for the dream and for the reason he put, "Because I can". Smirking at this, he pressed submit. 10 seconds later an A- was shown on his screen before the indent below the screen released a piece of paper. Picking it up, he saw that it was his test score and official documentation that he passed. Shrugging, he looked around and saw that quite a few people had already finished and were heading to the door with papers in hand while those who didn't continued to answer the questions.

Getting up, Ash headed towards the back of the auditorium. Once he reached the back doors, he walked up to a free table and handed his paper to a proctor. The guy took one look at his score, looked up at his face before raising an eyebrow. He then shrugged before getting up and telling Ash to wait here while he went to register him as a trainee and to get his reward.

Ash just walked off to the side of the door and waited. While waiting he observed the people that were also waiting close by. They too looked like they were waiting since they were close to a few empty tables.

They were talking about how hard the test was and now that they were actually trainees, they would have a head start over some of the people who didn't know they could have an official Pokemon before they became a trainer. Though a trainer with brown hair in a light blue shirt did catch his eye when he said, "It isn't really a head-start if we don't already have Pokemon. Also since the revision of the required age to be a Pokemon Trainer was now 12 instead of 10, more people would resort to the trainee system. So it wasn't much of a head start. It was just a matter of seeing who was serious about being a Pokemon Trainer and who was doing it for fun."

Ash was impressed by the guy's logic. He also caught his name when he introduced himself to the group he had just interrupted. Apparently his name was Ritchie who was aspiring to be a Pokemon Master. Ash made a mental note to keep an eye on the guy's development. He wasn't sure why but he was sure Ritchie would be someone that would be on par with himself when they had a Pokemon battle.

Soon enough, a few proctors came back and handed out messenger bags with a motif of a pokeball to the waiting exam takers along with their score papers. Once they got that, they all left, Ritchie among them. Ash continued to wait and soon enough the proctor he handed his score sheet to also came back. Thanking him for his help, Ash walked out with his bag in both hands and the score sheet stored safely inside it.

Once he got back into the normal part of the Pokemon Center, he saw his mom chatting with a few other people. Slowly walking up to her, he waited for her to finish up her conversation before tugging on her sleeve.

When she towards who was tugging her sleeve, she saw Ash holding a messenger bag with a smile on his face. Immediately squealing at the fact that her boy had passed, she hugged him. While the people who she had been talking to congratulated Ash on passing as well.

Watching his mom bid her chat partners good bye, they headed out of the Pokemon Center. Getting out of the place, Ash noticed how chilly it was. It was getting close to the end of the year after all. The duo ended up stopping at a nearby restaurant to have a late lunch since it was almost 3 PM and they hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast which was at least 8 hours ago. Though Delia could have gone out to eat, she was too worried with her boys exam and ended up chatting with other worried mothers.

Once they were done, they trekked the 2 hour journey back to Pallet Town.

...

By the time they reached home, it was almost 5 PM, they had walked much faster then intended and gotten back to Pallet Town 15 minutes ahead of schedule. As soon as Ash entered his home, he raced up the stairs to store his bag in a safe place and to check on the egg.

When he entered his room, he was greeted to the sight of the egg wriggling around in the PEI. Ash immediately dropped everything he was holding and dashed to the egg. Quickly bringing it out of the PEI to hold, it continued to wriggle in his grasp. Soon enough cracks formed at the apex of the egg and started spreading downwards.

Less than a minute later, the egg imploded on itself and it turned into a glowing white blob that quickly started taking shape into a small humanoid creature. When the light had finished glowing and the newborn Pokemon came into view. Ash gasped as he had never seen something like this before.

It had a white body the size of a baby and on its head was a mass of green that had two red horns jutting out of it. It seemed to shake its head before looking up at the person holding it.

It let out a "Raaaaalts" before trying to hug Ash.

Ash had frozen as soon as it was done hatching because his brain couldn't compute just what kind of Pokemon he was holding. When he heard it call out, "Raaaaalts", his brain entered panic mode and he did the only thing he could do.

He yelled out, "Moooooom!"

* * *

**AN: Huh the chapters are getting progressively smaller. I wonder if this is a sign that I'm losing motivation to continue writing thing.**

**Anyway, this chapter is basically me finally deciding to utilize time skips instead of writing day to day, week to week activities. Now another thing, some people, no names, have asked if i actually have an outline for my stories. My answer is no, I just write what comes to mind and from their I try and shape it to fit my story, because to me writing a story with a pre-planned outline is pointless. You go over the thing, then think, ugh this looks like crap and change it anyway and make the thing pointless. Of course I might think the same while just typing it up as I go, so to some people, an outline might do them a lot of good but for me, they're useless.**

**About this story, I also hear how some of this is moving along slowly, Yea its moving slowly, but I noticed how in the anime, so much stuff is introduced only to be glossed over, so I want to go more in-depth so to speak, their was so much potential in some of the filler episodes that I felt was explained but then forgotten. Though I think that Ash's journey will start in maybe 2-3 chapters or so. 5 tops. It depends on my mood and what type of ideas I have.**

**And yea, the egg finally hatched. This was a hard ass choice for me since their were so many types of Pokemon that could've come out of the egg, but I wanted to stay away from Legendaries, so I decided to go with one of my favorite Pokemon, Ralts.**

**Some of the scenes were hard to write out since I don't think I captured the emotion right, but oh well. Also changing this from OP! Ash to OvertimeStrogn!Ash.**

**Not beta'd.**

**Laters.**


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